Book 3 - Part 9

The popular emotion had considerably increased. Bernadette, when she passed, was received with acclamation, and the poor child used to return home with all possible speed in order to escape their ovations. This humble soul, which, up to that time, had lived entirely unknown, in silence and solitude, found itself all at once placed in a blaze of light, in the midst of uproar and of the crowd, on the pedestal of fame. This glory, which so many court so eagerly, was to her a martyrdom of the most cruel description. Her most insignificant words were commented on, discussed, admired, rejected, made the subject of scoffs—in a word, abandoned to the different currents of human opinion. It was then she tasted the heartfelt joy of having something she was not to divulge, and of finding, in the three secrets imparted to her by the Virgin, a kind of secluded sanctuary to which her heart might retire with a sense of perfect peace, and refresh itself in the shade of that mystery, and with the charm of its intimate union with the Queen of Heaven.

As we have already remarked, the outburst of the Fountain had taken place towards sunrise in the presence of a numerous assemblage. It was the 25th of February, the third Thursday of the month, and a great market-day at Tarbes. The news, therefore, of the marvelous occurrence of the morning at the Rocks of Massabielle, was carried to the town by a multitude of eye-witnesses, and before night had been spread through the whole Department, and even as far as the nearest towns of the neighboring departments. The extraordinary movement, which, for the last eight days, had attracted to Lourdes so many pilgrims and others, urged by mere curiosity, was from that moment developed to a most surprising degree.

A great number of visitors came to sleep at Lourdes in order to be on the spot next day; others walked all through the night, and at break of day, the usual hour of Bernadette’s arrival, five or six thousand persons, closely packed on the banks of the Gave, the neighboring eminences and the rocks, were encamped in front of the Grotto. The Spring had considerably increased in volume since the previous day.

When the youthful Seer, humble, peaceful and simple in manner in the midst of so much commotion, presented herself in order to pray, the cry of “There is the Saint! There is the Saint!” arose from the vast throng. Several persons sought to touch her garments, regarding as sacred everything pertaining to one so privileged by the Lord.

It was not, however, the will of the Mother of the humble and the lowly that this innocent heart should succumb to the temptation of vain glory, and that Bernadette should, for one moment, be puffed up with pride on account of the singular favors she had received.

It was well that the child should feel, in the midst of such acclamations, her own nothingness, and realize once more how powerless she was, when left to herself, to evoke the divine Vision. It was in vain she prayed. The superhuman radiancy of ecstacy was not observed diffusing itself over her features; and, when she rose, after her long prayer, she replied, in a tone of sadness to the interrogations showered upon her, that the Vision from on high had not appeared.

Book 3 - Part 8

Precisely at that hour, at the very moment the Spring was gushing softly but irresistibly from beneath the child’s hand, in testimony, as it were, of the divine intervention, the Philosophers of Lourdes published a new article on the occurrences at the Grotto in the Free-thinking journal of the locality.

The Lavedan, a newspaper we have already quoted, had been issued, and was in process of distribution just at the moment of the return of the amazed multitudes from the Rocks of Massabielle.

Neither in this article nor in the preceding one, nor, indeed, in any of the descriptions of the place written at that time, was there the slightest hint of the existence of any Spring at the Grotto. And thus incredulity had paralyzed beforehand the audacious assertion that the Spring had always flowed there, to which the Free-thinkers might, after a certain time, be tempted to have recourse.

It was the will of Providence, that, in addition to the testimony of the public, these men should have their own articles, their own printed publications, which their dates rendered authentic and beyond refutation, brought again against them.

If these beautiful gushing waters, which delight the eye to-day, had been in existence before the 25th of February, before the scene we have just described was enacted, and the orders and indications given by the Virgin to Bernadette in her state of ecstasy, how came it that the editors of the papers, who were always supposed to keep their eyes open, and whose details were sometimes so minute—how came it that they never saw this copious spring nor ever once mentioned it?

We defy the Free-thinkers to produce a single document—we repeat, the words, a single document—which makes any mention of a Spring, or even of any water, before the period when the Virgin commanded and Nature obeyed.

Book 3 - Part 7

The night had ended the agitations of so many minds so differently influenced, some believing in the reality of the Apparition, others remaining in a state of doubt, while a certain number persisted in denying the fact.

Day was about to break, and the universal Church, over all the surface of the Globe, was murmuring in the interior of Temples, in the silence of solitary Presbyteries, in the peopled shade of Cloisters, beneath the vaulted roofs of Abbeys, Monasteries and Convents, those words of the Psalmist in the Office of Matins: Tu es Deus qui facis mirabilia. Notam fecisti in populis virtutem tuam. . . . Viderunt te aquæ Deus, viderunt te aquæ, et timuerunt, et turbatæ sunt abyssi.

“Thou art the God who workest marvels. Thou hast shown forth Thy power in the midst of the multitudes. . . . The waters saw Thee, O Lord, the waters saw Thee, and they trembled in Thy presence and the depths were troubled.”

Bernadette, having arrived before the Rocks of Massabielle, had just knelt down.

An innumerable crowd had preceded her to the Grotto and pressed around her. Although there were there a good number of sceptics, of such as denied the truth of the Apparition, and of others who came merely from motives of curiosity, a religious silence suddenly prevailed as soon as the child had been perceived. A shudder had passed through the crowd like a shock of electricity. All, by a unanimous instinct, the incredulous as well as believers, had uncovered their heads. Several had kneeled down at the same time as the daughter of the miller.

At that moment the divine Apparition manifested Herself to Bernadette, who was suddenly transported into her marvelous ecstacy. As was always the case, the radiant Virgin stood in the oval excavation of the rock, and her feet rested on the wild rose.

Bernadette contemplated her with an inexpressible sentiment of love, a sentiment sweet and deep, which overflowed her soul with delight, without at all disturbing her mind or causing her to forget she was still upon earth.

The Mother of God loved this innocent child. She wished, by a still closer intimacy, to press her yet more to her bosom; She wished to strengthen still more the bond which united Her to the humble shepherd-girl, in order that the latter, amid all the agitations of this world, might feel, so to say, every moment, that the Queen of Heaven held her invisibly by the hand.

“My child,” she said, “I wish to impart to you, always for you alone, and concerning you alone, a last secret, which, as with the other two, you will never reveal to any one in the world.”

We have explained further back the profound reasons which formed, out of these intimate confidences, the future safeguard of Bernadette, amidst the moral dangers to which the extraordinary favors, of which she was the object, must inevitably expose her. By this triple secret, the Virgin clothed her messenger, as it were, with armor of three-fold strength against the dangers and temptations of life.

Bernadette, in the exceeding joy of her heart, listened, in the meanwhile, to the ineffable music of that voice so sweet, so maternal, so tender, which, eighteen hundred years ago, had charmed the filial ears of the Infant-God.

“And now,” rejoined the Virgin, after a short silence, “go and drink from, and wash yourself in the Fountain, and eat of the herb which is growing at its side.”

Bernadette, at this word “Fountain,” gazed around her. There was, and never had been, any Spring in that spot. The child, without losing sight of the Virgin, betook herself quite naturally towards the Gave, whose tumultuous waters were rushing a few paces from there, across pebbles and broken rocks.

A word and a gesture from the Apparition arrested her in her course.

“Do not go there,” said the Virgin; “I have not spoken of drinking from the Gave; go to the Fountain, it is here.”

And stretching out Her hand—that delicate yet powerful hand—to which nature submits, She showed with her finger to the child, on the right side of the Grotto, the same parched corner towards which, but the morning before, She had made her ascend on her knees.

Although she saw nothing in the place pointed out to her which appeared to have any connection with the words of the divine Being, Bernadette obeyed the command of the heavenly Vision. The vaulted roof of the Grotto sloped downwards on this side, and the little girl scrambled on her knees the short distance she had to traverse.

On reaching the end, she did not perceive before her the least appearance of a fountain. On the face of the rock there sprung here and there some tufts of that herb belonging to the Saxifrage family, which is called la Dorine.

Whether it was owing to a new sign from the Apparition, or to an inward impulse of her soul, Bernadette, with that simple faith so pleasing to the heart of God, stooped down, and, scratching the ground with her tiny hands, began to scoop out the earth.

The innumerable spectators of this scene, as they neither heard nor saw the Apparition, did not know what to think of this singular operation on the part of the child. Many already began to smile, and to believe in some derangement of the poor shepherd-girl’s brain. How little is needed to shake our faith.

All at once the bottom of this little cavity dug by the child became damp. Arriving from unknown depths, across rocks of marble and the bowels of the earth, a mysterious water began to spring up, drop by drop from beneath the hands of Bernadette, and to fill the hollow, about the size of a goblet, which she had just completed.

This water, newly come mixing itself with the earth broken by Bernadette’s hands, formed at first nothing but mud. Three times did Bernadette essay to raise this muddy liquid to her lips; but three times was her feeling of disgust so strong that she rejected it, feeling she had not the power of swallowing it. However she wished, before everything else, to obey the radiant Apparition who towered over this strange scene; and the fourth time, making a grand effort, she surmounted her repugnance. She drank, she washed herself, and she ate a morsel of the wild plant which grew at the foot of the rock.

At that moment the water of the Spring overleaped the brim of the little reservoir hollowed by the child, and proceeded to flow in a slender stream, more slender, perhaps, than a straw, towards the crowd which was pressing on the front of the Grotto.

This stream was so extremely small that for a long time—until the close, in fact, of that day—the parched earth sucked it up entirely on its passage, and you could only guess its progressive course by the damp line, like a ribbon, which was traced on the ground, and which, increasing in length by degrees, advanced at an extremely slow rate towards the Gave.

When Bernadette had accomplished, as we have related above, all the mandates she had received, the Virgin gazed at her with an expression of satisfaction, and, a moment afterwards, She disappeared from her sight.

The multitude were greatly excited by this prodigy. As soon as Bernadette emerged from her state of ecstasy, all rushed towards the Grotto. Every one wished to see with his own eyes the little hollow from which the water had gushed from beneath the hand of the child. Every one wished to dip his handkerchief in it and raise a drop of it to his lips. So this infant spring, in consequence of the gradual enlargement of its reservoir by the crumbling in of the earth, assumed, in a short time, the appearance of a puddle of water or of a liquid mass of wet mud. The Spring, however, seemed to increase in volume as water was drawn from it, and the orifice through which it gushed from the depths below became visibly larger.

“It was some water which must have accidentally dripped from the rock during the rainy season, and which, and that, too, accidentally, must have formed a little pool, under the ground which the child has also accidentally discovered,” said the savants of Lourdes.

And the philosophers remained perfectly satisfied with this explanation.

The next day, the Spring, urged by an unknown power from the mysterious depths, and perceptibly increasing in volume, gushed from the ground more abundantly.

The stream proceeding from it was already about the thickness of your finger. It was, however, still muddy, owing to its struggles in forcing its passage through the earth. It was only at the expiration of a few days, that, after having augmented to a certain degree from hour to hour, it ceased to increase, and became perfectly limpid. From that time it gushed from the earth in a jet of considerable magnitude, having almost reached the size of a child’s arm.

We must not, however, anticipate events, but continue to follow them, day by day, as we have done hitherto. We will now resume our narrative.

Book 3 - Part 6

The honorable M. Jacomet, in the meanwhile, seemed to be annoyed with himself for not having surprised the imposture in the very act, and crushed the growing superstition by his own personal exertions. He racked his brains to guess the answer to the enigma, for he began to see clearly, from the very demand made by the Curé of Lourdes, that the Clergy had nothing to do with the matter. He had, therefore, only the little girl and her parents to deal with. He never for a moment doubted, that somehow or other, he would settle the affair to his satisfaction.

When Bernadette chanced to make her appearance on the street, the crowd eagerly pressed round her: at every step she was stopped by some one, and every one wished to hear from her mouth the details of the Apparitions. Several persons, among others M. Dufo, an advocate and one of the eminent men of the place, sent for her and asked her numerous questions. They did not resist the secret power which the living Truth imparted to her words. Many persons repaired in the course of the day to the house of the Soubirous to hear Bernadette’s account of the affair. She submitted with all simplicity and complaisance to these incessant interrogations, and it was plain that, from that time forth, she considered it her peculiar office and duty to bear witness to all that she had seen and heard.

In a corner of the room in which visitors were received, there was a little shrine adorned with flowers, medals and holy images, and surmounted by a statue of the Virgin, which gave it an appearance of luxury and attested the piety of the family. All the rest of the chamber showed signs of the most wretched destitution; a pallet-bed, a few rickety chairs, and a miserable table, comprised all the furniture of the dwelling in which crowds came to learn the splendid secrets of heaven. The majority of visitors were struck and touched by the sight of such extreme indigence stamped on everything, and could not resist the pleasing temptation of leaving these poor people some present,—some trifling alms. This, however, the child and her parents invariably refused so peremptorily, that they could not press anything on them.

Many among these visitors were strangers to the town. One of the latter came to the house one evening at an hour when the throng of visitors had subsided, and there only remained a neighbor or a relation of the family sitting at the fireside. He carefully interrogated Bernadette, desiring her not to omit the slightest detail, and appearing to take an extraordinary interest in the child’s narration. Every moment he betrayed his enthusiasm and faith by the most tender exclamations. He congratulated Bernadette on having received so great a favor from heaven, and then compassionated the want of which he saw around him so many marks.

“I am rich,” said he; “allow me to assist you.” He placed on the table a purse, which he half opened, showing that it was full of gold. A flush of indignation mantled Bernadette’s countenance. “I do not wish for anything, Sir,” she observed eagerly. “Take it back again.” And she pushed the purse, which had been placed on the table, towards the unknown gentleman. “It is not for you, my child, it is for your parents, who are in want, and you cannot hinder me from succoring them.” “We do not wish to have anything, nor Bernadette either!” exclaimed her parents. “You are poor,” continued the stranger, insisting in his offer. “I have put you out of your way, and I take an interest in you. Is it from pride that you refuse me?” “No, Sir; but we do not want anything. Take back your gold.” The unknown took back his purse and left the house, with an expression of much annoyance on his countenance.

Where did this man come from, and who was he? Was he a compassionate benefactor or a crafty tempter? We know not. The police arrangements were so excellent at Lourdes, that perhaps M. Jacomet, more fortunate in this respect than ourselves, knew the secret, and could solve the riddle better than any one else.

If, then, by one of those accidents which sometimes occur in matters of police, the cunning Commissary heard that very evening the details of this scene between Bernadette and this mysterious stranger, he must have allowed that snares and temptations were as useless against this extraordinary child as captious questions and violent threats had already proved. The difficulties attending the unravelling of this affair increased for this man, who was yet so superlatively shrewd and so expert in merely human matters. If he had been surprised at the complete impossibility of producing the slightest contradiction in Bernadette’s recital, he was plunged into a state of absolute stupor by her disinterestedness and the firmness she had displayed in rejecting a purse full of gold.

Such conduct would have been easily explained in the mind of the sagacious Commissary had not the demand of some visible proof, of a miracle, of the impossible blossoming of the wild rose, which the Curé had made, proved, beyond a shadow of doubt, that the Clergy were not lurking behind the youthful Seer. But Bernadette and her parents, left to their own resources, poor, in distress, wanting for bread, and still not deriving any profit from the popular enthusiasm and credulity—this was a thing altogether inconceivable. Had the little girl invented the imposture merely to make herself talked about? But, to say nothing of the fact that there appeared little probability of such an ambition in the mind of a little shepherd-maid, what explanation could be offered for the indefeasible unity of her narration and her disinterestedness, which extended even to the members of her family, who were all extremely poor, and, consequently, sorely tempted to turn the blind credulity of the multitude to their own advantage? M. Jacomet was not the man to flinch because the case was attended with some insoluble objections, and he confidently awaited the turn of events, little doubting that a triumph was in store for him, which would only be rendered more glorious from the fact that at first it had been beset with difficulties and obstacles.

Book 3 - Part 5

There was certainly some truth in the Abbé Peyramale’s sly repartee; but, perhaps, not so much as he was inclined to think. Surely, if at that moment with his profound sagacity and high-mindedness, he had maturely reflected on the words which the Celestial Vision had pronounced a short time after having smiled, he would have comprehended the meaning of the smile which the poor child, favored though she was with such visions, was unable to interpret.

“To pray for sinners, to do penance, to climb kneeling the steep and difficult slope which leads from the rapid and tumultuous waves of the torrent to the unchangeable rock on which one of the sanctuaries of the Church was to be founded,”—such had been the commands of the Apparition at the close of the child’s prayer; such had been Her answer to the request that She should cause the wild-rose to blossom; such had been, from Her own mouth, the plain and clear commentary on Her smile. Who does not see after due reflection, the admirable meaning of this symbolic response?

“And what, even though I am the Mother of the God-Saviour, the Mother of that Jesus who spent his life in doing good and in consoling the afflicted, could they demand nothing from me as a proof of my power but this idle and frail marvel, which the rays of the sun, who is my Servant, will perform of themselves a few days hence? When a multitude of sinners, indifferent or hostile to the law of God, covers the surface of the globe; when whole nations, either guilty or led astray, quench their thirst at the poisoned stream of this world or at the turbid torrents which rush down to the abyss; when they have need, above all things, to scale on their knees the rugged path which separates the fleeting and troubled life of the flesh from the unchangeable life of the spirit; when the salvation of so many outcasts and the healing of so many sick in soul is the constant study of my maternal heart, am I not to give better proofs of my Power and Goodness than to make roses bloom in the depth of winter? and is it for so trifling an amusement that I appear to a young girl of earth and open my hands full of graces before her?”

Such was, it appears to us, as far as it is permitted to a wretched man to penetrate and interpret things so lofty in their nature, the deep meaning of the smile and the commands by which the Mother of the human race replied to the request of the Pastor of Lourdes. God, more especially in evil and necessitous times, does not condescend to fritter away (if we may use the expression), his omnipotence in vain prodigies which only strike the eye, or in ephemeral wonders which would wither before the close of day and be carried away by the first blast of wind. When it is His will to found aught eternal, He supports it by some eternal proof which future ages will not be able to impair.

What, meanwhile, was the signification of the command received by Bernadette to scale on her knees the surface of the Grotto until her progress was arrested by the escarpment of the parched rock? No one knew; and, in the presence of that arid rock, no one dreamed that, from the moment the Synagogue had committed self-murder while thinking to slay Jesus, the staff of Moses had passed as an heir-loom to the people of Christ.

The Curé of Lourdes, despite the lofty range of his mind, did not at once see these things which the future was to make so clear. The strong doubts he cherished within him of the reality of the Apparition prevented him from meditating carefully on the various circumstances connected with the scene at the Grotto, and fixing on them that clear glance which he usually threw on the things pertaining to God.

The Free-thinkers of the place, although somewhat disconcerted at the conversions produced that day at the Rocks of Massabielle by the extraordinary splendor of Bernadette’s transfiguration, triumphed exceedingly at the check the believers had met with, in regard to the humble and graceful proof which had been demanded by M. Peyramale. They praised the latter even more than they had done on the previous day for having exacted a miracle.

“Jacomet,” they said, “was guilty of a blunder in wishing to kill the Apparition: the Curé, with much greater shrewdness, forces her to commit suicide.” Incapable of appreciating the loyal simplicity of his impartial wisdom, which, doubtless, demanded some proofs before either believing or rejecting the matter, they attributed to craft what was really the result of prudence, and detected a snare in the simple prayer of an upright soul which was in quest of truth. As we see, on this occasion, these gentlemen were almost on the point of paying the Curé of Lourdes the high compliment—which he certainly did not deserve—of reckoning him as one of their own number.

Book 3 - Part 4

“Well, have you seen her to-day, and what has she said to you?” demanded the Curé of Lourdes, when Bernadette had presented herself at his house on her return from the Grotto.

“I have seen the Vision,” replied the child, “and I said to her ‘Monsieur le Curé requests you to furnish him with some proofs, as for instance, to cause the wild rose which is under your feet to blossom, because my word alone does not satisfy the Priests, and they will not rely on me.’ Then she smiled but said nothing. Afterwards she bade me pray for sinners, and commanded me to ascend to the bottom of the Grotto. And she cried out three times the words ‘Penitence! penitence! penitence!’ which I repeated as I dragged myself on my knees as far as the bottom of the Grotto. There she imparted to me a second secret which regards myself alone. Then she disappeared.”

“And what have you found at the bottom of the Grotto?”

“I looked after She had disappeared (for as long as She is there my attention is fixed on Her alone and She entirely absorbs me), and saw nothing but the rock, and on the ground a few blades of grass which were growing in the midst of the dust.”

The priest remained absorbed in a kind of reverie.

“Let us wait,” said he to himself.

The same evening, the Abbé Peyramale related this interview to the vicaires of Lourdes and some priests from the neighborhood. They rallied their Dean on the apparent failure of his demand.

“If it is the Blessed Virgin,” they said to him, “this smile on the receipt of your request, appears to us as unfavorable for you; and irony from so exalted a quarter strikes us as alarming.”

The Curé extricated himself from this view of the question with his usual presence of mind.

“This smile is in my favor,” he replied; “the Blessed Virgin is no scoffer. If I had spoken ill, she would not have smiled, she would have been moved to pity at my plea. She smiled; therefore she approves.”

Book 3 - Part 3

 

Among those who had been prevented hitherto by their superlative contempt for superstition from mixing themselves with the multitude in order to examine what was going on, several resolved from that time forth to repair to the Grotto in order to attend officially the popular deception. One of the above was M. Estrade, the Receveur des Contributions Indirectes, of whom we have already spoken, and who had been present in M. Jacomet’s room, at the interrogatory of the youthful Seer. He had been there, as you will remember, deeply struck with Bernadette’s strange accent of sincerity, and being unable to doubt the child’s good faith, had attributed her story to the results of a hallucination. At times, however, this first impression fading away, he inclined to the solution of Jacomet, who continued to view the whole affair as an extremely clever piece of acting and a miracle of roguery. M. Estrade’s philosophy, however firm in its principles, oscillated between these two explanations, which to his point of view were the only ones possible. His contempt for these mystic extravagances and these impostures went so far that up to that moment in spite of his secret curiosity, he had made it a point of honor not to go to the Rocks of Massabielle. That day, however, he resolved to repair to them―partly to attend a strange spectacle― partly to observe for himself―and partly out of complaisance and to escort thither his sister, who was much touched with these accounts and certain ladies in the neighborhood. He has, himself, related to us his impressions, which are not liable to any suspicions.

“I reached the spot,” he informs us, “much disposed to examine and, to tell the truth, to laugh and enjoy myself thoroughly, expecting as I did to see a kind of farce or some grotesque absurdities. An immense crowd of people massed themselves by degrees round those wild rocks. I wondered at the simplicty of so many blockheads and smiled to myself at the credulity of a crowd of devotees who were kneeling sanctimoniously in front of the rocks. We had come very early in the morning, and thanks to my skill in elbowing the crowd, I had no great difficulty in securing a place in the front ranks. At the usual hour, towards sunrise, Bernadette arrived. I was near to her. I remarked in her childish features that expression of sweetness, innocence and profound tranquillity with which I had been struck some days previously at the residence of the Commissary. She knelt down in a perfectly natural manner, without ostentation or embarrassment, and paying apparently little attention to the crowd which surrounded her, precisely as if she had been alone in a church or in a solitary wood, far from human gaze. She drew out her chaplet and began to pray. Shortly afterwards her look seemed to receive and reflect a strange unknown light; it became fixed and rested wondering, ravished and radiant with happiness on the opening in the rock. I turned my eyes in the same direction, but I saw nothing, Absolutely nothing, except the naked branches of the wild-rose. And yet, must I confess it to you? In face of the transfiguration of the child, all my former prejudices, all my philosophical objections, all my preconceived negations fell at once to the ground and cleared the way for an extraordinary feeling which took possession of me in spite of myself. I had the certitude, the irresistible intuition that a mysterious being was there. My eyes did not see it; but my soul and the souls of the innumerable witnesses of this solem hour saw it as I did, with the inner light of evidence. Yes, I attest the fact that a divine being was there. Suddenly and completely transfigured Bernadette was no longer Bernadette. It was an Angel from heaven plunged in indescribable ravishment. She had no longer the same contenance; another cast of intelligence, another life, I was going to say another stamp of soul was depicted upon it. She bore no longer any resemblance to herself, and it seemed as if she was a perfectly different person. Her attitude, her slightest gestures, the manner, for instance, in which she made the sign of the Cross, had a nobility, dignity, and grandeur, exceeding anything human. She opened her eyes wide as if insatiable of seeing―wide open and almost motionless; she was afraid, it would seem, to droop her eye-lids and to lose for a single moment the ravishing sight of the marvel she was contemplating. She smiled at that invisible being, and all this conveyed the fullest idea of ecstacy and beatitude. I was not less moved than the rest of the spectators. Like them, I held my breath, in order to endeavor to hear the colloquy which was being carried on between the Vision and the child. The latter listened with an expression of the most profound respect, or to express it better, of the most absolute adoration mingled with boundless love and the sweetest ravishment. Sometimes a shade of sorrow passed over her countenance, but its habitual expression was one of extreme joy. I observed that, at intervals of a few moments, she ceased to breath. During the whole of this time she had her chaplet in her hand, sometimes motionless (for ever and anon she seemed to forget it in order to lose herself entirely in the contemplation of the divine Being), sometimes gliding the beads more or less regularly through her fingers. Each of her movements was in perfect harmony with the expression of her countenance, which denoted by turns admiration, prayer and joy. She made from time to time those signs of the Cross, so pious, so noble and so imprinted with power, of which I have just spoken. If the denizens of Heaven make the signs of the Cross, they will assuredly resemble those made by Bernadette in her state of ecstacy. This gesture of the child, restricted as it was, seemed to a certain extent to embrace the Infinite.

“At a certain moment Bernadette quitted the spot where she was praying on the bank of the Gave, and without rising from her knees proceeded to the interior of the Grotto. It is a distance of about forty-five feet. While she was mounting this somewhat abrupt slope, the persons who were on her route, heard her very distinctly pronounce the words ‘Penitence! penitence! penitence!’

“A few moments afterwards she rose and walked in the midst of the crowd towards the town. She had subsided into a poor little tattered girl, who to all appearance had taken no more part in this extraordinary spectacle than those around her.”

However, while all this scene was being enacted the wild rose had not blossomed. its bare and unattractive branches wound motionless along the rock, and in vain had the multitude awaited the fragrant and charming miracle which had been demanded by the chief pastor of the town.

It was, however, a remarkable circumstance that this fact did not seem to stagger the belief of the faithful; and notwithstanding this apparent protestation on the part of inanimate nature against all supernatural power, many considerable men, and among others the one whose account of the occurance we have just given, felt themselves converted to belief on witnessing the transfiguration of the youthful seer.

The crowd, as was always the case, minutely examined the Grotto at the close of the ecstacy, when the child had taken her departure. M. Estrade, like all the rest, explored it with the greatest attention. Every one sought to discover something extraordinary in it, but there was nothing in it to strike the eye. It was an ordinary cavity in a hard rock and its surface was perfectly dry in every direction with the exception of the entrance and that part exposed to the west, when, during wet weather, the wind driving the rain produced a temporary humidity.

Book 3 - Part 2

 

It was not long before all the details of the conversation, which had taken place between Bernadette and the universally respected priest who at that time was Curé of the town of Lourdes, became generally known.

“He has given her a sorry reception,” observed the savants and philosophers in great glee. “He is too reasonable to believe in the reveries of a child in a state of hallucination and has shown considerable tact in getting hmself out of the difficulty. On the one hand, it was impossible for a man of his intelligence and calibre to countenance such follies, while on the other, by opposing to all this a simple denial, he would have had all this fanatical multitude on his back. Instead of falling into the double danger and being taken in the horns of this dilemma, he escapes quietly out of the difficulty and without going directly against the popular belief, he very cleverly demands a visible, palpable, and certain proof from the Apparition,―in a word, a Miracle, which is equivalent to an impossibility. He condemns the lie or the illusion to refute themselves, and, with the thorn of a wild rose tree bursts this grand balloon. It is a very happy idea.”

Jacomet, M. Dutour and their friends rejoiced at this demand in due form of law notified to the invisible Being of the Grotto. “The Apparition is summoned to produce her passport.” was a joke repeated with much laughter in official quarters.

“The wild-rose will blossom,” said the firmest among the believers, those who were still under the impression made on them by having witnessed Bernadette in a state of ecstacy.

A great number, believing though they did in the Apparition, were alarmed at this ordeal. The heart of man is after this fashion, and the Centurion, mentioned in the Gospel, spoke for the most of us when he said, “Credo Domine, adjura incredulitatem meam.”

“Lord I believe. Help thou mine unbelief.”

Both parties awaited the morrow with impatience.

Book 3 - Part 1

On her arrival in the town Bernadette found that the multitude had streamed there in advance of her in order to observe her next proceedings.

The child passed down the road which traverses Lourdes and served to form its principal street: then stopping in the lower part of the town, before the boundary wall of a rustic garden, she opened its gate, which was painted green, with an open railing, and directed her steps toward the house to which the garden belonged.

The crowd, actuated by a feeling of respect and decorum, did not follow Bernadette, but remained outside.

Humble and simple in appearance, her poor garments patched in many places, her head and shoulders covered with her little white capulet of the coarsest material; having in a word no external sign of a mission from on high―with the exception perhaps of the royal mantle of poverty which Jesus Christ himself bore―the messenger of the divine Virgin, who had appeared at the Grotto, had just entered the abode of the venerable man, in whom, in that out-of-the-way part of the world and for this child, the infallible authority of the Catholic Church was personified.

Although it was still early the Curé of Lourdes had already finished saying his Office.

We know not whether at the moment he was about to hear for the first time the voice of this poor shepherd-girl, so insignificant in the eyes of the flesh and the world but so great perhaps in the judgment of Heaven, his memory recalled to him the various words he had just pronounced that very day at the Introit and Gradual of the Mass: "In medio Ecclesiae aperuit os ejus . . . . . Lingua ejus loquitur judicium. Lex Dei ejus in cor de ipsius." "His lips have spoken in the midst of the Church. His tongue hath said that which is just. The law of God is in his Heart."

The Abbé Peyramale, although, as a faithful and pious son of the Church, fully convinced of the possibility of the Apparitions, experienced some difficulty in believing in the divine reality of this extraordinary Vision which, according to the statement of a child, was making itself manifest on the banks of the Gave, in a grotto, hitherto unknown, of the Rocks of Massabielle. He would doubtless have been convinced by the aspect of her ecstasy; but he had seen nothing of all these things save through the eyes of strangers, and great doubts existed in his mind respecting the reality of the Apparitions in the first place, and secondly as regarded their divine character. The Angel of Darkness truly transforms himself at times into an Angel of Light, and in such matters a certain uneasiness is quite warrantable. Besides he deemed it necessary to test the sincerity of the youthful seer himself. He therefore received Bernadette with an expression of mistrust which amounted even to severity.

Although, as we have already stated, he had kept himself aloof from what had been taking place and never in his life spoken to Bernadette―who besides had only recently been added to his flock―she was known to him by sight, some persons having pointed her out to him a day or two before, when she happened to be passing in the street.

"Are you not Bernadette, the daughter of Soubirous?" said he to her, when having crossed the garden, she presented herself before him.

The eminent priest, whose portrait we have sketched had all the familiarity of a father with his parishioners, more especially with the little children belonging to his flock. Only on that day was the tone of Father severe.

"Yes, it is I, Monsieur le Curé," Replied the humble messenger of the Virgin.

"Well, Bernadette, what do you want of me? What are you coming to do here?" he rejoined somewhat harshly, glancing at the same time at the child with an expression of cold reserve and severe scrutiny, eminently calculated to disconcert a soul which might not have much confidence in itself.

"Monsieur le Curé, I come on the part of the 'Lady' who appears to me at the Grotto of Massabielle."

"Ah, yes," observed the priest, cutting her short, "you pretend to have visions, and you draw everyone after you with your fabrications. What is all this? What has happened to you within the last few days? What is the meaning of all these strange things you affirm without bringing forward anything in proof of them."

Bernadette was grieved, perhaps in her innocence, surprised at the severe bearing and almost harsh tone assumed by the Curé on receiving her, as he was usually so kind, paternal and mild with his parishioners, more especially with the little ones.

She however related simply all the facts already known to the reader, and though she was heavy at heart, her tale was told without agitation and with a clam self-possession of truth.

This man of God could rise superior to all his personal prejudices. Accustomed from long practice to read the hearts of others, he inwardly admired, while she was speaking, the wonderful character of truthfulness in this little peasant-girl, recounting in her rustic language occurrences of so marvelous a nature. Through her limpid eyes, behind her candid countenance, he perceived the profound innocence of her highly privileged soul. It was impossible for one of his noble and upright nature to hear that accent of truth and survey those pure and harmonious features, so stamped with goodness, without feeling himself inwardly prompted to believe the words of the chid, who was then speaking.

The incredulous themselves, as we have already explained, had ceased to arraign the sincerity of the youthful Seer. In her state of ecstasy, Truth from above seemed entirely to illuminate her and enter within her. In her accounts of what had happened, Truth seemed to proceed from her person and spread its radiance around, filling the hearts of others with new ardor and scattering, like vain clouds, the confused objections of the intellect. This extraordinary child, in short, had around her brow as it were an aureole of sincerity, which was visible to the eyes of pure souls and even to those of an opposite kind, and her words were gifted with the power of expelling doubt.

In spite of M. Peyramale's unbending and decided character, in spite of his strength of mind and intellect, in spite of his profound distrust, his heart was strangely stirred with an emotion which seemed inexplicable by the accents of Bernadette, who was so much spoken of and to whom he was now listening for the first time. This man, notwithstanding his strength, felt himself vanquished by this all-powerful weakness. However, he had too much self-command and was too prudent to allow himself to be carried away by an impression which, after all, might deceive him. As a mere individual, he would probably have said to the child, "I believe you." As Pastor of a vast flock, over which he was placed as the guardian of the truth, he had determined to surrender only to visible and palpable proofs. Not a muscle of his face betrayed his inward agitation. He was able to preserve his harsh and severe expression of countenance towards the child.

"And you do no know the name of this Lady?"
"No," replied Bernadette. "She did not tell me who she was."

Those who have faith in your statements," rejoined the Priest, "imagine that it is the Blessed Virgin Mary. But are you aware," he added with a grave and vaguely menacing voice, "that if you falsely pretend to see Her in this Grotto you are on the high road never to see Her in Heaven? Here, you say you alone see Her. Above, if you lie in this world, others will see Her, and, in punishment of your deception you will be forever far from Her, for ever in hell."

"I know not whether it is the Blessed Virgin, Monsieur le Curé." replied the child; "but I see the Vision as I now see you, and She speaks to me as you are doing now. And I come to tell you from Her that She wishes a chapel to be erected to Her at the Rocks of Massabielle, where she appears to me."

The Curé gazed on this little girl while she was intimating to him this formal demand with such perfect assurance; and, in spite of his previous emotion, he could not repress a smile at this strange message when taken in connection with the humble and childish appearance of the ambassadress from heaven. The emotion of his heart was succeeded by a thought taking possession of his mind that the child was laboring under a delusion, and doubt reassumed the upper hand.

He made Bernadette repeat the very terms employed by the Lady of the Grotto.

"After having confided to me the secret which regards me alone and which I cannot reveal, She added: 'And now go to the Priests and tell them I wish they would erect a chapel to me here.' "

The Priest remained silent for a moment. "After all," he thought, "it is possible!" And this thought that the Mother of God was sending a direct message to himself, a poor unknown priest, fill him with trouble and agitation. Then he fixed his eyes on the child and asked himself, "What guarantee have I of the truth of this little girl and what is there to prove to me that she is not the sport of some error?"

"If the 'Lady' of who you speak to me, is really Queen of Heaven," he replied, "I should be happy to contribute, so far as my means will allow, to the erection of a chapel to her; but your word is not a certainty. Nothing obliges me to believe you. I do not know who this 'Lady' is, and before busying myself with her wishes, I would need to know whether she has a right to make this demand. Ask her then to give me some proof of her power."

The window happened to be open and the Priest glancing downward into the garden perceived the arrest of vegetation and the momentary death produced among the plants by the hoar-frosts of winter.

"The Apparition, you tell me, has under its feet a wild rose tree, an eglantine, which grows out of the rock. We are now in the month of February. Tell her from me that if she wishes the Chapel, she may cause the wild rose to blossom." Saying which he dismissed the child.

Book 2 - Part 14

What then had this strange and intimate conversation turned upon? What was this peculiar secret of which Bernadette spoke, being at the same time unwilling to explain its nature? What secret could there be between the Mother of the omnipotent Creator of Heaven and Earth and the lowly daughter of the miller Souberois; between this radiant Majesty, the highest that exists after God; between this supreme Queen of the Realms of the Infinite, and the little shepherd girl of the hills of Bartrès? Assuredly we will not attempt to divine it, and we should regard it as a sacrilege to play the eavesdropper at the gates of Heaven.

We may, however, be allowed to remark the profound and delicate knowledge of the human heart and the maternal wisdom which doubtless prompted the august speaker, in Her interview with Bernadette, to introduce some words of profound secrecy as a prelude to the public mission with which She invested her. Favored in the eyes of all with marvellous Visions, charged to the Priest of the true God with a message from the other world, the soul of this child, up to that moment so peaceful and solitary, found itself transferred all at once into the midst of innumerable crowds and infinite emotions. She was about to become the mark of the railleries of some, the menaces of others, the contradictions of many, and, what was attended with most danger to herself—of the enthusiastic veneration of a great number. The days were at hand when the multitudes would receive her with acclamation and would vie with each other for the possession of shreds of her garments, as if they were holy relics; when eminent and illustrious personages would prostrate themselves before her and implore her blessing; when a magnificent temple would rise and whole populations would flock together in incessant pilgrimages and processions on the faith of her word. And thus it was that this poor child, sprung from the people, was on the point of undergoing the most terrible trial which could assault her humility,—a trial in the course of which she might lose for ever her simplicity, her candor, in short all those modest and sweet virtues which had germinated and blossomed in the bosom of solitude. The very graces she received became a source of fearful danger to her, a danger to which more than once the choicest souls, honored by favor from heaven, have succumbed. St. Paul himself, after his visions, was tempted with pride, and required to be buffeted by the Evil Angel of the flesh in order that he might not exalt himself in his own heart.

The Blessed Virgin willed, however, to protect this little girl whom She loved, without permitting the Evil Angel to approach this lily of purity and innocence, opening its petals to the rays of her grace. What then does a mother when her child is threatened with danger? She clasps it closer and more tenderly to her bosom and says to it, quite low, in the mystery of a word softly murmured in her ear, “Fear nothing, I am here.” And should she be obliged to quit it for a moment and leave it alone, she adds: “I am not going away far. I am here within a few paces of you, and you have but to stretch out your hand to take mine.” In the same manner did the Mother of us all act towards Bernadette. At the moment when the world with all its various temptations, and Satan with all his subtle snares were about to strain every nerve to tear the child from Her, She was pleased to unite her more intimately to Herself. She girded her with Her arms and pressed her more energetically to Her heart. She, the Queen of Heaven!—by imparting a secret to the child of earth, She did all that; it was to elevate Bernadette even to the import of Her lips which uttered low tones; it was to found in her childish memory an inaccessible place of refuge, a place of peace and close intimacy which no one could ever succeed in disturbing.

A secret imparted to and heard by another creates the strongest bond of union between two souls. To tell a secret is to give a sure pledge of affectionate fidelity and unreserved confidence; it is to establish a closed sanctuary and as it were a sacred place of meeting between two hearts. When some one of importance, some one infinitely above us in rank, has put us in possession of his secret, we can no longer doubt him. His friendship has by means of this intimate confidence taken up, as it were, its abode in ourselves, and by it he has made himself the master of our soul. When our thoughts dwell on this secret, we seem in a measure mysteriously pressing his hand and feel as if in his presence.

In like manner a secret imparted by the Virgin to the miller’s daughter became for the latter a safeguard on which she might firmly rely. We are not taught this by Theology: it is the study of the human heart which attests its truth.

Book 2 - Part 13

On the morning of the next day, the crowd was assembled before the Grotto ere the sun had risen. Bernadette repaired to her post with that calm simplicity of manner which remained unchanged amid the threatening hostility of some and the enthusiastic veneration of others. The sorrow and anguish of the previous day had left some traces on her countenance. She still feared she should see the Apparition no more; and whatever were her hopes, she scarcely dared to give way to them.

She kneeled down with humility, supporting in one hand a taper which she had brought with her, or had been given to her, while, in the other, she held her chaplet.

The weather was calm, and the flame of the taper did not mount more straight to heaven than did the prayer of this soul towards those invisible regions from which the blessed Apparition was wont to descend. Doubtless it must have been so; for scarcely had the child prostrated herself, when the ineffable Beauty, whose return she was then so ardently invoking, manifested herself to her eyes and transported her with ravishment. The august Sovereign of Paradise gazed on the child of this world with an expression of indescribable tenderness, appearing to love her still more since she had suffered. She, the greatest, the most sublime, the most powerful of created Beings; She, whose glory swaying all ages and filling eternity, makes all other glory grow pale, or rather disappear; She, the Daughter, Spouse and Mother of God, seemed to wish to introduce, as it were, a kind of intimacy and familiarity into the feelings which united her with this little unknown and ignorant child, this lowly shepherd-girl. She addressed her by her name, with that sweet, harmonious voice, the deep charm of which ravishes the ear of the Angels.

“Bernadette,” said the divine Mother.

“I am here,” replied the child.

“I have to tell you a secret, for you alone, and concerning you alone. Do you promise me never to repeat it to any one in the world?”

“I promise you,” said Bernadette.

The dialogue continued, and entered into a profound mystery, which it is neither possible nor allowable for us to fathom.

Whatever it may have been, when this kind of intimacy had been established, the Queen of the eternal Realm gazed on this little girl, who the day before had suffered, and was destined again to suffer, for love of Her; and it pleased Her to choose her as an ambassadress to communicate one of Her wishes to mankind.

“And now, my child,” said she to Bernadette, “go, go to the Priests and tell them to raise a chapel to me here.” And as She pronounced these words the expression of her countenance, her glance and her gesture, seemed to promise that she would pour out there numberless graces.

After these words, she disappeared, and the countenance of Bernadette re-entered into the shade, as the earth at night, when the sun has gradually worn away in the depths of the horizon.

The multitude pressed round the child, who had but just now been transfigured in ecstasy. The hearts of all were touched with emotion. Questions were showered upon her from all quarters. They did not ask her if the vision had taken place; for at the moment of her ecstasy, all had understood, had been conscious that the Apparition was there; but they wished to know the words which had been uttered. Every one made efforts to approach the child and to hear what she said.

“What did she say to you? What did the Vision say to you?” was a question which escaped from the mouths of all.

“She told me two things—the one for myself alone, the other for the Priests; and I am going to them immediately,” replied Bernadette, who was in haste to take the road to Lourdes in order to deliver her message.

She was astonished on that, as on the preceding days, that every one did not hear the dialogue and see the “Lady.” “The vision speaks loud enough for others to hear,” she said; “and I also speak in my ordinary tone of voice.” In fact, during the ecstasy, every one perceived the child’s lips to move, but that was all; no one could distinguish any words. In this mystic state, the senses are, in a manner, spiritualized, and the realities which strike them are absolutely imperceptible by the gross organs of our fallen nature. Bernadette saw and heard, she spoke herself; and yet no one around her could distinguish the sound of her voice or the form of the Apparition. Was Bernadette, then, mistaken? No; she alone grasped the truth. She alone, aided by spiritual succor and ecstatic grace, perceived momentarily that which escaped the senses of all others; precisely as the astronomer, furnished with the material assistance of his telescope, contemplates for an instant in the heavens the vast yet distant star which is invisible to the eyes of the vulgar. Outside her state of ecstasy she saw nothing; exactly as the astronomer without the powerful optical instrument, which increases a hundred-fold the power of his eye, is as powerless to discover a hidden star as his next neighbor.

Book 2 - Part 12

What we have just related had taken place in the afternoon, and a rumor of it had rapidly spread through the town. The sudden interruption of the supernatural Apparitions gave rise to the most opposite comments. Some pretended to derive from the circumstance an unanswerable argument against all the preceding visions; others, on the contrary, considered it as an additional proof of the child’s sincerity.

This irresistible power, said to have carried away Bernadette in spite of herself, elicited shrugs from all the philosophical shoulders in the place, and furnished a subject for interminable theses to the respectable savants, who explained everything by a perturbation of the nervous system.

The Commissary, seeing that his injunctions had been infringed, and learning, in addition to this, that François Soubirous had removed the prohibition which he had imposed on his daughter, sent for both of them, together with the mother, and renewed his threats. He succeeded in alarming them afresh; but, notwithstanding the terror with which he inspired them, he was greatly surprised at no longer finding in François Soubirous the docility and feebleness of character displayed by him the previous evening.

“Monsieur Jacomet,” said the poor man, “Bernadette has never told an untruth, and if God, the Blessed Virgin, or any other Saint calls her, we cannot offer any opposition to them. Put yourself in our place. God would punish us.”

“Besides, you say yourself that the Vision has ceased to make its appearance,” argued Jacomet, addressing himself to the child. “You have now nothing more to do there.”

“I have promised to go there every day during the Quinzaine,” replied Bernadette.

“All that is mere stuff!” exclaimed the Commissary, in a tone of exasperation; “and I shall put you all in prison if this girl continues to excite the mob with her grimaces.”

“Good God!” said Bernadette. “I go to pray there quite alone. I do not invite any one, and it is not my fault if so many persons precede and follow me. They have, indeed, said that it was the Blessed Virgin, but as for myself, I do not know who it is.”

Accustomed as he was to the quibbles and artful tricks of rogues, the Agent of Police was disconcerted, face to face, with such profound simplicity. His craft, his marvelous shrewdness, his captious questions, his threats, all the cunning or alarming tricks of his calling had been hitherto foiled, by what, at first sight, and even now, appeared to him to be weakness itself. Never, for a single moment, admitting himself to be in the wrong, he could not conceive the reason of his complete failure. Far, then, from ceasing to oppose the free course of things, he resolved to summon other forces to his assistance.

“Really,” he exclaimed, stamping on the floor, “this is a mighty stupid business!”

And, permitting the Soubirous to return home, he rushed to the Procureur Impérial.

Notwithstanding his horror of superstition, M. Dutour could not find any law in the arsenal of our code to warrant him in treating the youthful Seer as a criminal. She did not summon any one to join her; she did not derive any pecuniary advantage from her proceedings; she went to pray on a public piece of ground, open to everybody, and where no law prohibited her from kneeling; she did not give out that the Apparition uttered anything subversive of, or contrary to, the Government; the population did not commit the slightest disorders. On these heads there was evidently no opening for treating her with rigor.

As to prosecuting Bernadette on account of “fausses nouvelles,” experience had established the fact, that she never contradicted herself in her story, and without a contradiction in her words, admitting of actual proof, it was difficult to establish that she lied, without directly attacking the very principle of supernatural Apparitions—a principle admitted by the Catholic Church in all ages. Without the concurrence, then, of the high authorities of the Magistracy and the State, a mere Procureur Impérial could not take upon himself to engage in a conflict of this nature.

To make her, then, amenable to prosecution, it was at least necessary that Bernadette should contradict herself one day or other; that either she or her parents should derive some profit from the transaction, or that the crowd should be guilty of some disorder.

All this might occur. To natures of the common order, which usually busy themselves in the lower regions of the official world, it would, doubtless, have only been a step from this hypothesis to the desire of realizing it; from this clear view of things in the minds of those hostile to the fanaticism of the people, to the wish to lay snares for the multitude or the child. But M. Jacomet was a functionary, and the morality of the police is above suspicions of the kind. It is only ill-disposed minds which can believe in the existence of agents who provoke others to infringe the laws.

Book 2 - Part 11

 

Shortly before Bernadette’s arrival at the Grotto, the mysterious power which had borne her along seemed to be diminished, if not to have altogether ceased. She walked slower, and felt a degree of fatigue which was unusual to her; for this was precisely the spot where, on other days, an invisible power seemed at one and the same time to draw her towards the Grotto and support her in the exertion of walking. On that day, she did not experience either this secret attraction or mysterious support. She had been driven towards the Grotto, but she had not been attracted towards it. The power, which had seized her, had marked out to her the path of duty and shown that, above all things, she must obey and keep the promise she had given to the Apparition; but, she had not, as on former occasions, heard the interior Voice and experienced the all-powerful attraction. Any one accustomed to the analysis of mental feelings will appreciate these shades of difference which are more easily understood than expressed.

Although the vast majority of the multitude which had remained all the morning in the vain expectation of seeing Bernadette arrive had dispersed, there was still at that moment a considerable crowd assembled in front of the Rocks of Massabielle. Some had come there to pray—others actuated by mere curiosity. Many of these, having from a distance observed Bernadette walking in that direction, had rushed to the spot and reached it simultaneously with her.


The child, according to her usual habit, knelt down humbly and began to recite her chaplet, keeping her eyes fixed on the opening festooned with moss and wild branches where the celestial Vision had, already six times, deigned to appear.

The crowd wrapped in attention, curious, collected and breathing thick with the intensity of their feelings, expected every moment to see the countenance of the child become radiant and indicate by its lustre that the superhuman Being was standing before her.


A considerable period of time elapsed in this way.

Bernadette prayed fervently, but no portion of her motionless features was lighted up from the divine reflection. The marvelous Vision did not manifest herself to her eyes, and the child was not heard when she earnestly besought the realization of her hopes.

Heaven, like earth, seemed to abandon her and to remain as hard to her prayer and her tears, as the rocks of marble before which her knees were bent.

Of all the trials to which she had been exposed since the previous evening this was the most cruel, and her cup of bitterness was full to overflowing.

“Why hast thou disappeared?” thought the child, “and why dost thou abandon me?”

The marvelous Being seemed herself in fact to reject her also, and by ceasing to manifest herself to her, to justify those who opposed her and leave the victory in the hands of her enemies.

The crowd was disconcerted and interrogated poor Bernadette. Those around her asked her a thousand questions.

“To-day,” replied the child, her eyes red with tears, “the ‘Lady’ has not appeared to me. I have not seen any thing.”

“You must now be convinced,” said some, “that it was an illusion, my poor little girl, and that there has never been anything; it was merely your fancy.”

“In fact,” added others, “if the Lady appeared yesterday, why should she not have appeared to-day?”

“On the other days, I saw her as plainly as I now see you,” said the child; “and we conversed together. But to-day, she is no longer there, and why it is so, I know not.”

“Pshaw!” rejoined a Sceptic, “the Commissary of Police has succeeded, and you will see an end of all this.”

De par le roi, défense à Dieu

De faire miracle en ce lieu.

Believers who happened to be there were troubled in heart, and did not know what to say. As to Bernadette, sure as she was of herself and of the past, not a shadow of doubt flitted across her mind. She was, however, profoundly mournful, and shed tears and prayed on regaining her father’s house.

She attributed the absence of the Apparition to some feeling of dissatisfaction. “Could I have committed any fault?” she asked herself. But her conscience did not reply to her with any reproach. Meanwhile, her feeling of enthusiasm towards the divine Vision, whom she evidently longed to contemplate, was one of redoubled fervor. She sought in the simplicity of her soul what measure she could take to see her again, and she discovered none. She felt her utter absence of power to evoke this immaculate Beauty which had appeared to her, and turning her heart to God, she wept, not knowing that to weep is to pray.

There remained, however, a secret hope in the innermost depths of her sorrowing soul, and some rare rays of joys, piercing here and there all these sombre clouds, passed at intervals over her heart, strengthening her faith in the divine Apparition, which she never ceased to love and in which she believed, although it was no longer presented to her sight. And yet, doubtless, the poor and ignorant child did not and could not know the meaning of the words which were being chanted at that moment in the Epistle of the Mass: “Ye shall rejoice in God, should it be necessary for you to be grieved with divers trials, to the end that, thus strengthened, your faith infinitely more precious than gold (which is also tried by fire), may turn into praise, into glory, and into honor for the manifestation of Jesus Christ, Him whom ye love always, although ye have not seen Him; Him, in whom ye believe, although ye see him not now; and, for the very reason that ye thus believe, ye shall be crowned with indescribable and glorious joy.”

In the same way she had no presentiment of the event which was on the eve of being accomplished, and she was unable, humble peasant girl as she was, either to know or to apply to the Rock of Massabielle those words which the Priests of the entire Universe pronounced that very day in the Gospel for the Mass,—“Super hanc petram ædificabo Ecclesiam meam,” “On this rock I will build my Church.” She did not divine that very shortly, that is to say, on the morrow of these hours passed in bitter tears, she would herself announce prophetically, and demand, in the name of the Apparition, the erection of a temple on those lonely rocks.

All these things were hidden in the unfathomable obscurity of the future.

“Where do you come from?” said her father to her, the moment she came in.

She related to them what had just happened.

“And you say,” continued her parents, “that some power carried you along in spite of yourself?”

“Yes,” answered Bernadette.

“That is true,” they thought to themselves, “for this child has never told a falsehood.”

Bernadette’s father reflected for some moments. It seemed as if there was a kind of struggle going on within his mind. At length he raised his head and seemed to arrive at a definite resolution.

“Well,” he rejoined, “since it is so, since some superior power has dragged you there, I no longer forbid you to go to the Grotto, and leave you free to do as you like.”

An expression of joy of the purest and most lovely kind lighted up Bernadette’s countenance.

Neither the miller nor his wife had taken any objection to the absence of the Apparition on that day. Perhaps, in the bottom of their hearts, they attributed its cause to the opposition they had offered, from fear of the civil power, to superhuman commands.

Book 2 - Part 10

The next morning, Monday the 22nd of February, when the usual hour for the Apparition arrived, the crowd waiting for the youthful Seer on the banks of the Gave saw no signs of her coming. Her parents had sent her at sunrise to the school, and Bernadette deeming it her duty to obey, had repaired thither with a heavy heart. The Sisters, whose duties combining charity and instruction, had rendered them somewhat callous by long acquaintance with human suffering.

Towards the middle of the day the children returned home for a few moments to partake of their frugal meal.

Bernadette, her soul crushed between the two alternatives presented by her irremediable situation, walked slowly towards her home. From the tower of the Church at Lourdes the mid-day Angelus had just sounded.

At that moment an unaccountable power took possession of her all at once, acting not on her mind but her body, as an invisible arm might have done, and, driving her out of the road she was taking, forced her irresistibly in the direction of the path which lay on her right. She was impelled by it, seemingly, in the same way as a leaf, lying on the ground, is hurried along by the imperious blast of the wind. She could no more prevent herself advancing than if she had been placed suddenly on a most rapid descent. Her whole physical being was dragged towards the Grotto, to which this path led. She could not but walk, she was even obliged to run.

And yet the movement by which she was carried along was neither violent nor rough. It was irresistible; but it had nothing in it harsh or shocking to her who was under its control; on the contrary, it was supreme force co-existing with supreme mildness. The almighty hand rendered itself as soft as that of a mother, as if it had feared to injure so frail a child.

Providence, therefore, which directs all things, had solved the insoluble problem. The child, submitting to the will of her father, was not going to the Grotto, where her heart yearned to be; and yet carried away forcibly by the Angel of the Lord, she arrived there notwithstanding, thus fulfilling her promise to the Virgin without having wilfully disobeyed the paternal command.

Such phenomena have been remarked more than once in the life of certain souls, whose deep purity has been pleasing to the heart of God. Saint Philip Neri, Saint Ida of Louvain, Saint Joseph of Cupertino, Saint Rose of Lima experienced impulses of a similar or analogous nature.

The humble heart of the child, bruised and deserted, began already to smile with hope in proportion as her steps approached the Grotto. “There,” said she to herself “I shall see the beloved Apparition once more; there I shall be consoled for everything—there I shall contemplate that beautiful countenance, the sight of which ravishes me with happiness. Boundless joy will ere long succeed these cruel sorrows, for the Lady will never desert me.”

Owing to her inexperience she was not aware that the Spirit of God breathes where it wills.

Book 2 - Part 9

Although M. Jacomet had been powerless against the simple, precise and uncontradictory answers of Bernadette, he had, nevertheless, gained a decided advantage at the close of this long struggle. He had exceedingly terrified the father of the youthful Seer, and he knew that in that quarter, at least for the time, the odds were in his favor.

François Soubirous was a very good kind of a man, but by no means a hero. Opposed to official authority, he was timid, as the lower classes and the poor usually are. To such, the least embroilment with the law is, owing to their poverty, a terrible misfortune, and they feel themselves utterly powerless to cope with arbitrary power and persecution. He believed, it is true, in the reality of the Apparitions; but as he neither comprehended their nature nor measured their importance, and even felt a certain amount of terror in connection with these extraordinary events, he saw no great inconvenience in setting his face against Bernadette’s revisiting the Grotto. He had perhaps some vague fear of displeasing the invisible Lady who was in the habit of manifesting herself to his child, but the fear of irritating a man of flesh and blood, of engaging in a struggle with so formidable a personage as the Commissary came nearer home to him and acted much more powerfully on his mind.

“You see that all these gentlemen of the place are against us,” he observed to Bernadette, “and if you return to the Grotto, M. Jacomet, who is master here, will put both of us in prison. Do not go there any more.”

“Father,” said Bernadette, “when I go there, it is not altogether of myself. At a certain moment there is something in me which calls me and attracts me to the place.”

“Be this as it may,” rejoined her Father, “I forbid you positively to go there again. You will surely not disobey me for the first time in your life.”

The poor child, thus placed in a dilemma between the promise she had made to the Apparition and the express prohibition of her father’s authority, replied: “I will in that case do all in my power to prevent myself going there and to resist the attraction which summons me to the place.”

So passed sadly away the evening of the same Sunday which had arisen in the blessed and glorious splendor of ecstasy.

Book 2 - Part 8

 

The highly intelligent man who was about to interrogate Bernadette flattered himself with the idea of obtaining an easy triumph. He was one of those who obstinately refused the explanation given by the savants of the place. He had no faith either in catalepsy or hallucination, or the various illusions of a morbid ecstasy. The particularity of the statements attributed to the child, and the observations made by Dr. Dozons and many other witnesses of the scenes enacted at the Grotto, seemed to him irreconcilable with such a hypothesis. With regard to the fact itself of the Apparitions, he did not believe, they say, in the possibility of those visions from the other world, and his detective genius, however much it was adapted to track rogues in their breach of the laws, could scarcely perhaps reach so far as to discover God behind a supernatural fact. Being, therefore, fully convinced in his own mind that those apparitions could not but be false, he had resolved, by fair means or foul, to discover the clue to the error, and to render the Free-thinkers in authority at Lourdes or elsewhere, the signal service of branding as an imposture, a supernatural manifestation which had gained popular credit. He had there an admirable opportunity of striking a heavy blow at the pretended authority of all the Visions of past ages, more especially should he succeed in discovering and proving that the Clergy, who so studiously kept aloof in this affair, were secretly directing it and turning it to their own advantage.

Under the supposition that God was nothing and man everything in this event, the reasoning of M. Jacomet was excellent. On the contrary supposing that God was everything in it and man nothing, the unfortunate Commissary of Police was embarking on a most perilous voyage.

In this disposition of mind, M. Jacomet, from the very first day, had caused all the proceedings of Bernadette to be carefully watched, with the view of surprising, if possible, some mysterious communication between the youthful Seer and any member of the Clergy, whether of Lourdes itself or the neighborhood. He had even, it seems, extended his official zeal so far as to place one of his creatures in the church with orders to keep his eye on the confessional. However, the children who attended the Catechism, were in the habit of going to confession by rotation once a fortnight or once a month, and Bernadette’s turn, during those days, had not yet arrived. All his conscientious efforts had therefore failed to discover any complicity in the acts of imposture which were attributed by him to Bernadette. From this he drew the conclusion that she was acting probably alone, without altogether renouncing his suspicions, for the true agent of police is always suspicious, even when he has no proofs. It is this which constitutes his peculiar type and his proper genius.

When Bernadette entered he fixed on her for a moment his sharp and piercing eyes, which he had the wonderful art of impregnating all at once with good-humor and unconstrained. Habituated as he was to take a high tone with every one, he was more than polite with the poor girl of Soubirous, the miller: he was soft and insinuating. He made her take a seat and assumed at the commencement of his interrogatory the benevolent air of a real friend.

“It appears that you are in the habit of seeing a beautiful Lady at the Grotto of Massabielle, my poor child. Tell me all about her.”

Just as he had said these words, the door of the apartment had been gently opened and some one had entered. It was M. Estrade, Receveur des Contributions Indirectes, a man of importance at Lourdes and one of the most intelligent in the place. This functionary occupied a portion of the house in which M. Jacomet resided, and having been apprised, by the uproar of the crowd, of the arrival of Bernadette, had naturally felt curious to be present at the interrogatory. He concurred, besides, with M. Jacomet in his ideas on the subject of apparitions, and, like him, believed in some trickery on the part of the child. He used to shrug his shoulders on being offered any other explanation. He considered things of this nature as being so absurd, that he had not even condescended to go to the Grotto to witness the strange scenes reported as taking place there. This philosopher seated himself a little on one side, after having made signs to the Commissary not to interrupt his proceedings. All this passed without Bernadette appearing to pay it any particular attention.

Thus the scene and the dialogue of the two interlocutors obtained a witness.

On hearing the question of M. Jacomet, the child had directed her beautifully innocent glance towards the agent of police, and set about relating in her own language, that is to say in the patois of the country, and with a sort of personal timidity which added still more to the truthfulness of her accent, the extraordinary events, with which for some days past, her life had been filled.

M. Jacomet listened to her with deep attention, still affecting an air of good-humor and kindness. From time to time he took notes on a paper which lay before him.

This was remarked by the child but it did not cause her any uneasiness. When she had finished her relation, the Commissary, with increased earnestness and sweetness of manner, put to her innumerable questions as if his enthusiastic piety was interested beyond measure in such divine wonders. He shaped all his interrogations, one after the other, without any order, in short and hurried phrases, so as not to allow the child any time for reflection.

Bernadette replied to these various questions without any trouble or shadow of hesitation, and with the tranquil composure of a person who is questioned on the aspect of a landscape or a picture immediately under his eyes. Sometimes, in order to make herself understood, she added some imitative gesture, some expressive mimicry, to supply as it were the feebleness of her expressions.

The rapid pen of M. Jacomet had in the mean time noted, as she went along, all the answers which had been given to him.

Then it was that after having attempted in this manner to weary and perplex the mind of the child by entering into such a minute infinity of details—then it was that the formidable agent of police assumed, without passing through any intermediate stage, a menacing and terrible expression of countenance and suddenly changed his tone:

“You are a liar,” he exclaimed with violence and as if seized suddenly with rage; “you are deceiving everybody, and unless you confess the truth at once, I will have you arrested by the Gendarmes.”

Poor Bernadette was as much stupefied at the aspect of this sudden and formidable metamorphosis as if she had felt the icy rings of a serpent suddenly twisting itself among her fingers, instead of the harmless branch of a tree which she had fancied she had been carrying in her hand. She was stupefied with horror, but, contrary to the deep calculations of Jacomet, she was not agitated. She preserved her tranquillity as if her soul had been sustained by some invisible hand against so unexpected a shock.

The Commissary had risen to his feet with a glance at the door as if to hint that he had only to make a sign to call in the Gendarmes and send the visionary to prison.

“Sir,” said Bernadette, with a calm and peaceful firmness, which, in this wretched little peasant-girl had an incomparably simple grandeur, “you may have me arrested by the Gendarmes, but I can only say what I have already said. It is the truth.”

“We shall see about that,” said the Commissary resuming his seat and judging by a glance of his experienced eye that threats were absolutely powerless on this extraordinary child.

M. Estrade, who had been a silent and impartial witness of the scene described above, was divided between feelings of immense astonishment with which Bernadette’s accent of conviction had inspired him, and of admiration, in spite of himself, of the skilful strategy of Jacomet, the aim of which as it was unfolded before him, he thoroughly understood.

This struggle between such strength coupled with craft, and mere childish weakness with no other defensive weapon than simplicity, assumed a totally unexpected character.

Jacomet, however, armed with the notes which he had been taking for the last three quarters of an hour, applied himself to recommencing his interrogatory, but in a different order and in a thousand captious shapes, proceeding always, according to his method, with sudden and rapid questions and demanding immediate answers. He had no doubt of being able by such means to drive the little girl to contradict herself, at least in some of the minor details. Were this done, the imposture was exposed and the game was in his own hands. But he exhausted in vain all the dexterity of his mind in the multiplied evolutions of this subtle manoeuvre. In nothing did the child contradict herself, not even in that imperceptible point, that minute iota spoken of in the Gospel. To the same questions, in whatever terms proposed, she invariably replied, if not in the same words, at least with the same facts and in the same shade of meaning. M. Jacomet meanwhile held out, if it was only with the object of wearying still more this artless child whom he hoped to find at fault. He turned and twisted her account of the Apparitions into every possible shape, without being able to impair it. He was like a wild beast trying to make an impression with its fangs on a diamond.

“Well,” said he at length to Bernadette, “I am going to draw up the report of your examination, and you shall hear it read.”

He wrote rapidly two or three pages, frequently consulting his notes. He had designedly introduced into certain details some variations of slight importance, as, for instance, the form of the robe and the length or position of the Virgin’s veil. This was a new snare, but it was as useless as all the rest. While he was reading and saying, from time to time, “That is correct is it not?” Bernadette, as simple and meek as she was unshaken, replied humbly but firmly:

“No; I did not say so, but so.”

And she re-established the inexactly-stated particular in its original truth and shade of meaning. For the most part, Jacomet contested the point.

“But you did say so! I wrote it down at the time. You have said so-and-so to several persons in the town,” etc., etc.

“No,” answered Bernadette; “I did not say so, and could not have said so, for it is not true.”

And the Commissary was always obliged to yield to the child’s objections.

The modest and invincible self-possession of this little girl was, indeed, most remarkable, and the surprise of M. Estrade, on observing it, increased. Personally Bernadette was, and appeared to be, extremely timid, and her bearing was humble and even somewhat confused before strangers. And yet, in anything touching the reality of the Apparitions, she displayed uncommon force of mind and energy of affirmation. When her testimony to what she had seen was in question, she gave her replies without hesitation and with undisturbed composure. But even then it was easy to divine in her the virgin modesty of a soul which would gladly have concealed itself from the sight of every one.

It was plain to be seen that she triumphed over her habitual timidity solely from respect for the internal truth, of which she was the messenger to mankind, and from love for the “Lady” who had appeared to her at the Grotto. She needed all the feeling of her office to enable her to surmount the innate tendency of her nature, which, under any other circumstances, was timid and disliked anything like publicity.

The Commissary betook himself once more to threats.

“If you persist in going to the Grotto, I shall have you put in prison, and you shall not leave this place until you promise to go there no more.”

“I have promised to the Vision to go there,” observed the child. “And, besides, when the moment arrives, I am urged on by something which comes within me and calls me.”

The interrogatory, as we see, verged to a close. It had been long, and could not have lasted less than an hour, at least. Outside, the crowd, not without a feeling of restless impatience, awaited the coming out of the child whom they had seen that very morning transfigured in the light of a divine ecstasy. From the apartment, in which passed the scene which we have just described, might be heard confusedly the cries, words, questions and thousand different noises which serve to form the tumult of a crowd. The uproar seemed to increase and assume a menacing tone. At a certain moment there was a peculiar kind of agitation in the crowd as if some one, whose presence had been greatly desired and long expected, had arrived in the midst of it.

Almost immediately, repeated knocks at the door of the house were heard, but they did not appear to affect the Commissary. The blows became more violent. The man who struck them shook the door at the same time and endeavored to force it. Jacomet rose in a state of irritation and went to open it himself.

“You cannot come in here,” said he furiously. “What do you want?”

“I want my daughter,” answered the miller, Soubirous, effecting his entrance by force, and following the Commissary into the room in which Bernadette was.

The sight of the peaceful countenance of his daughter calmed the anxious agitation of her father, and he once more subsided into a poor man of the humbler class, who could not help trembling in presence of a personage who, notwithstanding his inferior position, was, owing to his activity and intelligence, the most important and formidable man in the district.

Francois Soubirous had taken off his Bearnois biret and was twirling it in his hands. As nothing escaped the notice of Jacomet, he saw, at a glance, that the miller was frightened. Resuming his air of good-humor and compassionate pity, he clapped him familiarly on the shoulder.

“Friend Soubirous,” said he to him, “take care, mind what you are about. Your daughter is on the eve of getting herself into trouble, and is on the straight road to prison. I am willing not to send her there this time, but only on condition of your forbidding her to return to the Grotto, where she is acting a farce. On the first repetition of the offence, I shall be inflexible, and, besides, you know that the Procureur Impérial treats such matters earnestly.”

“Since such is your wish, Monsieur Jacomet,” answered the poor father, panic-struck, “I will forbid her to go there and her mother likewise, and, as she has always obeyed us, she will certainly not go there.”

“At any rate, if she goes there, and this scandal continues, I shall call you to account as well as her,” said the formidable Commissary, resuming his tone of menace and dismissing them by a gesture.

Cries of satisfaction were uttered by the crowd at the moment Bernadette and her father came out. The child then returned home, and the multitude dispersed through the town.

The Commissary of Police and the Receveur being left alone, communicated to each other the impressions made on them by this strange interrogatory.

“What firm resolution in her depositions!” exclaimed M. Estrade, who had been struck with profound astonishment.

“What invincible persistence in her falsehood!” replied Jacomet, stupefied at having been vanquished.

“What truth in her accents!” continued the Receveur. “Nothing in her language or bearing bore the slightest appearance of contradiction. It is clear she believes she has seen something.”

“What artful cunning!” rejoined the Commissary. “In spite of my efforts she never fell into any discrepancy. She has her story at her fingers’ ends.”

Both the Commissary and M. Estrade persisted in their incredulity regarding the actual fact of the Apparition. But a shade of difference already separated their two negations, and this shade of difference was as a gulf between them. The one supposed Bernadette to be dexterous in falsehood, the other set her down as sincere in her illusion.

“She is artful,” said the former.

“She is sincere,” observed the latter.