LOURDES
Line from Lourdes turns north--Argelez glacier--The Lavedan--
The Seven Valleys--Lourdes of old--The castle--Held by the
English--Attacked by the Duke of Anjou--Held by Saracens--
Besieged by Charlemagne--The Grotto--Bernadette Soubirous--
The _curé_ Ader--The apparition expected--The vision--
Repeated--Crowds attend Bernadette--The spring--Mud--Price
of the water--Je suis l’Immaculée Conception--Explanation--
Compromising pamphlet suppressed--The Abbé Ader removed--La
Salette--Similar visions seen by Huguenots--Doctor Dozous--The
Empress and Prince Imperial--The Emperor patronizes the Grotto--
Disappearance of documents--Laserre--His book a romance--The
Jesuit Cros exposes it--The water of the spring--Drawn from
the Gave--The Bishop’s commission--Pius IX appoints a festival
in honour of the apparition--Removal of Bernadette to Nevers--
Her brother refused permission to see her--Forces his way in--
Last scene--The procession--Where the natural ends and the
supernatural begins--No guarantee that the cures are permanent.
As the train sweeps into the station at Lourdes, on the right side, a
few feet above the Gave, may be seen the twinkling lights of the Grotto
of Massabielle, about which presently.
From the station of Lourdes the line turns north to Tarbes and
Toulouse, along what was the ancient course of the Gave, a course that
is patent to the eye, till the Argelez glacier threw up a barrier of
morraine that deflected the river, and sent it careering to the west.
[Illustration: THE BASILICA, LOURDES]
Lourdes stands at the entrance to and is the key to the Lavedan, so
called from _abies_, the pines that once clothed the mountain-sides.
The Lavedan is fertile. It is the trunk whence branch out numerous
valleys that run up to the roots of the mountains and receive
their water. But Lavedan formed a republic of seven of these
valleys--Batsouriguère, Castelloubon (through which flows the Nès),
Estrom de Salles, Azun, Saint Savin, Devantaïgue, and Barèges.
“Count” Henri Russell-Killough, in his _Fortnight Among the Pyrenees_,
describes the Lavedan.
“Vine, fig trees, cherry trees, poplars, willows, elms,
walnuts, maize, all meet here, and vegetation rises nearly to
the tops of the mountains. On a fine day the whole thing looks
like a modern Eden.”
I remember Lourdes before it was “invented” by Bernadette Soubirous and
the _curé_ Peyramale. It was a dead place, with narrow streets, very
dirty, clustered about the rock on which stands the castle. Although
the true capital of the Lavedan, the market for all the produce of the
Seven Valleys, yet it seemed to be tenanted only by beggars.
Lourdes commands the roads which here unite from Argelez, Tarbes, Pau,
and Bagnères. It was a place of great military importance, and was
the last stronghold in Guyenne retained by the English. It did not
surrender till 1418. The castle had been given to the English by the
French king John as part of his ransom, in conformity with the Treaty
of Bretigny, 1360, when the towns and barons of Gascony were required
to swear allegiance to the Black Prince, as representative of the
English king. After awhile the country rose in revolt, exasperated by
the exactions of the English, and the Duke of Anjou, brother of Charles
V, supported the Bigorriens.
After that all the plain had been recovered by the French, nothing
remained to the English but the Castle of Lourdes, the Lavedan to
Barèges, far removed from their base at Bayonne. The Duke of Anjou took
the town easily, as it was defended merely by a pallisade, but could
not capture the castle, which bade defiance to him during six weeks.
He vainly endeavoured to buy the governor, and was forced to retire
discomfited. The attempt made by Gaston Phœbus and the murder of Pierre
Arnaut de Béarn by him has been already related.
But the castle has an earlier history. It is supposed to have been a
Roman castrum. It was occupied by the Saracens, who retained it after
their defeats at Poitiers and Tarbes, till the reign of Charlemagne.
He besieged it. According to legend an eagle, flying above the highest
tower of the castle, dropped a fish on the battlement at a spot still
called Pierre de l’Aigle. Thereupon the Moorish commandant Mirad sent a
messenger to Charlemagne to say that he might understand how vain were
his expectations of reducing the garrison by famine, as the Prophet
himself provided it with food.
Charlemagne did not accept this view of the incident, and continued
the investment till the castle surrendered. The Bishop of Le Puy had
promised Charles the aid of Our Lady of Puy, if properly considered.
“Give her something,” said he, “if it be but a tuft of grass from the
castle wall.”
Mirad and the garrison put wisps of hay about the points of their
lances, in token of submission. Then Charles bade the bishop open his
lap and threw into it all the hay from the spear-heads. This was in 778.
In the eighteenth century the castle (Mirabel is its name) was
converted into a state prison, and it became the Bastille of Gascony.
Since the empire it has served as a barrack for a small garrison.
But it is not the castle that now attracts visitors to Lourdes, but the
Grotto of Massabiel, the story of which must be told briefly.
Bernadette Soubirous was the daughter of a drunken, dishonest miller,
who had lost his mill through speculation, and had been imprisoned.
He and his family were living as pensioners on the Abbé Peyramale,
_curé_ of Lourdes, in a wretched cottage in a back street--five persons
huddled into one room. Bernarde, afterwards called Bernadette, was
an under-sized, ill-fed, unhealthy child of limited intelligence
and utterly uneducated. For some reason never explained she was
sent to Bartrès, where she was employed in tending sheep. There she
attracted the attention of the _curé_ Ader, who repeatedly declared
his conviction that she was just the sort of person to be vouchsafed a
vision like that seen by the shepherd children of La Salette.
At the end of January, 1858, the Abbé Ader sent Bernadette, then aged
fourteen, back to Lourdes, where she was at once taken in hand by
one of the _vicaires_ of the place, the Abbé Pomian, who became her
confessor and director.
Singularly, perhaps significantly, on 28 December, 1857, M. Falconnet,
_procureur général_ at Lourdes deemed it expedient to send a report to
the _procureur impériale_ at Pau, that something was brewing in the
place. This is his letter:--
“I have been informed that manifestations of a supernatural
character and of a miraculous aspect are being prepared for the
end of this year. I would advise you to take measures that the
facts should be closely watched. I must know the details so as
to be aware under what articles of the penal code prosecution
is possible. I fear that little help can be gained from the
administration civil or religious. Our duty is to do all in our
power to stop the recurrence of such scandals as those of La
Salette, the more so as the religious intrigue is a means of
hiding one that is political.”
It is evident from this letter that something was expected at Lourdes.
The magistrate was mistaken only as to when it would take place, which
was forty-five days after this letter was written. On 11 February,
1858, a cold day, Bernadette was dispatched along with her younger
sister, Marie, and a companion, Jeanne, to collect sticks for fuel
beside the Gave, under the rock of Massabielle. Bernadette suffered
from asthma, had a bad cough, and scrofulous sores on her head. To
reach their destination a small stream had to be crossed. Marie and
Jeanne slipped off their sabots and went through the water, which was
so cold that it made them cry out. Bernadette stopped to remove her
wooden shoes and thick stockings. Beyond the stream rose a limestone
rock with a cave in the face, the floor of which was level with the
bank of the Gave. An oval opening above it allowed light to penetrate
from aloft into the recesses of the grotto. At the entrance to this
hole grew a rose bush.
Whilst stooping to take off her stockings, the rush of blood to her
head made the child fancy that she heard a sound as of wind, and
looking up she imagined that she saw a light in the upper hole, and a
lady standing in it, robed in white, wearing a blue sash, a veil over
her head, with a rosary in one hand, and golden roses on her feet.
To her excited fancy it seemed that the apparition smiled and made the
sign of Redemption with the cross of the rosary. Bernadette uttered an
exclamation, traversed the stream, told her companions what she had
seen, and asked them if they observed the lady. “No,” they replied, “we
have seen nothing.” Then Bernadette said, “No more did I, either.”
On their return to Lourdes, Marie told her mother what Bernadette had
stated, and Mme. Soubirous treated it as idle fancy.
The matter, however, was noised about and provoked attention, the more
so as from the magistrate’s letter we are made aware that something of
the sort was expected in the place. On Sunday, 14 February, a party
accompanied the girl to the spot; whereupon she knelt down, fell into
an ecstasy, and declared that she again saw the apparition. All Lourdes
was now stirred. Three ladies next took Bernadette in hand, and were
almost constantly in attendance on her--Mme. Millet, Mlle. Peyret, and
Mlle. Pène, sister of one of the curates of Lourdes. In their presence
Bernadette had other visions. Peasants now came in crowds, surrounded
the girl, and accompanied her on each expedition to the grotto. At the
suggestion of her confessor she put questions to the figure, and it
replied, so Bernadette asserted, enjoining penance, and the building of
a chapel on the spot.
One day “Madame,” said the child, “if you have something to communicate
to me, have the goodness to write it down.”
“There is no need for writing what I have to tell you,” replied the
mysterious lady; “but do me the favour of coming here during fifteen
days.”
On one occasion the apparition bade the girl go into the grotto, grub
for water, wash in it, drink it, and eat a mouthful of grass.
“The Grotto at this period,” said Mlle. Lacrampe, who was
present on this occasion, “had not the depth that it possesses
now. Pebbles and sand were heaped up in it to a considerable
height, so much so that one speedily reached a point where it
was necessary to bend double to get further. Bernadette, after
having raised her eyes to the niche, put her hand to her hood
to arrange it, and lifted her gown a little so as not to soil
it. Then she stooped to the earth, and when she raised her head
and turned her face towards the apparition, I saw that her face
was all smudged with dirty water.”
Bernadette herself related:--
“The lady told me to drink of the fountain and to wash in
it. Not seeing any spring, I was going to the Gave, but she
signed to me to enter the cave. I entered and saw only a little
dirty water. I put my hand to it, but could collect none, so
I scratched, and the water came, but it was muddy. Thrice I
rejected it. Only on the fourth attempt could I swallow any.”
The Jesuit father Cros says with regard to this exhibition:
“Mademoiselle Lacrampe se retira si défavorablement impressionée, qu’il
a fallu des années et des miracles pour la convaincre.” M. Estrade,
receiver of indirect taxes, says with respect to this affair: “Je
commerçais à être dérouté, et ne savais que penser de tout ceci.”
Thus was the miraculous spring discovered, the water of which, or what
is supposed to come from it, is sent throughout the world, a case of
thirty bottles carriage paid to the station 7 fr. 45 c. One bottle,
“franco à domicile,” in France 1 fr. 80 c.
Now it is absolutely certain that the water was there before Bernadette
Soubirous scratched till she reached it. The Abbé Richard, a geologist,
says that it was there and it was known to be there by many individuals
in Lourdes.
On 25 March Bernadette made her seventeenth visit to the grotto. The
_curé_ Peyramale had been at her repeatedly insisting that she should
ask the apparition who and what she was.
Accordingly on this occasion she said: “Madam, kindly inform me who you
are?”
Then the figure crossed its hands over the breast, lowered the eyes,
and said: “Je suis l’Immaculée Conception, et je désire une chapelle
ici.”
It is deserving of notice that the apparition did not state that
she was the Blessed Virgin, but that she was an abstraction, the
manifestation in visible form of a dogma.
Now Bernadette had been subjected for some time to strong suggestion.
She had been influenced by the Abbé Ader at Bartrès, who had announced
that she was just the sort of person to be chosen by the Blessed Virgin
to see her; then she had been under the direction of the _vicaire_
Pomian, and the strong personality of the _curé_ Peyramale, who
could mould such a feeble creature as wax. I do not imply that they
consciously provoked a fraud; far from it. I think that these clergy
had made up their minds that Bernadette was a suitable subject to be
favoured by a vision, and had let her understand what their opinion of
her was. Indeed, the schoolmaster at Bartrès, in his simplicity, wrote
as much in the _Guide du Pèlerin à Lourdes_. The fathers of Garaison,
who “ran the show,” to use a vulgar expression, were so alarmed at
this revelation, that they brought up and destroyed every copy of the
_Pèlerin_ on which they could lay their hands. According to J. de
Bonnefon, _Lourdes et ses tenanciers_:--
“Somewhat later, the Abbé Ader, dissatisfied, neglected,
forgotten, was filled with scruples, and told everything.”
What his authority for this statement is I do not know, but this is
certain, that Ader was hurriedly removed from his _curé_, and sent
hastily to the Benedictines, and kept in the abbey of Saint Benoît
for two years, without occupation, but lodged and fed and entertained,
not at his own cost. At the end of that time he was thought to be no
longer dangerous, and was appointed _curé_ of Oroix, a little place
with not two hundred inhabitants, in a remote corner of the diocese,
miles from every highroad. That Bernadette had heard of the apparition
at La Salette is certain, even if she had not heard Ader liken her to
one of those who saw that apparition, which took place in 1846, and was
preached about and talked of everywhere. I spent a summer in a château
in the valley of Argelez in 1850, and the _curé’s_ mind was full of
it. He lent me a book concerning it, and became hot in defence of the
veracity of the children.
Representations of the vision of La Salette were set up in
churches--statues and pictures and stained glass. Bernadette was a
constant attendant at church, and must have heard of this event.
Again, but three years previously, Pius IX had proclaimed the doctrine
of the Immaculate Conception as _de fide_, and every pulpit was ringing
with it. What it meant Bernadette did not know. But in her narrow,
uncultivated mind it took form as a prime verity of the faith which
was disputed by those who were weak in their belief--who were not good
Catholics.
What could have been expected under such influences, but that if the
child fancied she saw a vision, that vision would proclaim the doctrine
recently promulgated. Can it for a moment be doubted that if she had
heard the efficacy of a certain medicine vaunted, seen it everywhere
advertised, had it urged on her from the pulpit and in the class and
in the confessional, she would have heard the apparition say, “Je suis
l’infallible pilule pink.”
That Bernadette was an impostor cannot be admitted; no one who knew
her, none even of those who disbelieved in the apparition, had any
doubt on that score. But she was epileptic, hysterical, and subject
to hallucinations. She was very different from Melanie and Maximin
Mathieu of La Salette, whom the saintly _curé_ d’Ars saw, and was at
once convinced that they were liars. Very similar visions to that seen
by Bernadette had been seen by Huguenots. In the spring of 1668, near
Castres, a young shepherdess of La Capelle, aged ten, beheld an angel
who forbade her going to Mass. The news spread through the country,
and, just as at Lourdes, so at La Capelle, crowds assembled to see
her in an ecstasy, and hear her converse with the angel, who bade her
announce to all to avoid entering Catholic churches.
Roman Catholics would say that the girl was deceived by the devil, and
that Bernadette’s visions were from heaven. But in fact one was as
genuinely a delusion as the other.
Unfortunately the case of Bernadette was not examined coolly and
impartially. Very soon a doctor, Dozous, took up the cudgels for the
miracle. Here is what the _procureur impériale_ says of him, and from
that one can judge of the worth of his evidence.
“Doctor Dozous was formerly physician at the hospital of
Lourdes, but was dismissed his post two years ago. He has
resented this bitterly, I understand. Nor was he pleased that
he was passed over and three of his confrères were nominated
by the prefect to report on the physical and moral condition
of Bernadette Soubirous. Be that as it may, he has made a
change in his opinions since then. He did call these visions
farces, now they are something beyond the power of human nature
to explain. On 7 April he was for the first time struck with
a circumstance that had previously not struck him or any one
else. Bernadette, during her ecstasy, held a lighted candle
between her hands, and the flame licked her hands without
burning them. Other spectators, quite as well situated as M.
Dozous, assert that he saw incorrectly, or ill appreciated what
he did see.”
On 12 March, 1858, the Emperor Napoleon III demanded information
relative to the affair of Lourdes. Somewhat later the Empress was
at Biarritz, and had with her as attendant Mme. Bruat, who had just
returned from Lourdes, bringing with her some of the grass that grows
in the grotto. It fell out one night that the Prince Imperial was ill,
and croup was feared. Mme. Bruat urged the application of the herb from
Lourdes. The Emperor was roused, and in his presence the bit of dried
grass was applied to the lips of the child, and he became easier.
The Emperor and Empress at once extended their protection to the
grotto, and all serious examination into the matter was at an end. This
was on 2 August. The consequences were immediately felt. None of the
civil authorities at Tarbes or Lourdes dared thenceforth express doubts
in the genuineness of the apparition. It had a further effect. There
existed a good number of documents in the _dossier_ at Tarbes relative
to what had been going on at Lourdes, very candid accounts--perhaps too
candid. One compromising packet disappeared, and was offered privately
for sale to several persons. The police were at once set to work, and
secured the stolen packet, which was _not_ restored to its place, but
totally and irretrievably disappeared.
In 1869 appeared Lasserre’s book, _Notre Dame de Lourdes_, which had
an enormous sale; it had reached its 126th edition in 1892. Henri
Lasserre had been a journalist, and his paper, the _Contemporaine_,
had utterly failed. He was in bad circumstances, when the bright idea
struck him to puff Lourdes. He went there in August, 1867, and placed
himself in the house of the _curé_ Peyramale, and took in without
criticism everything that he was told. He did more; he dressed up every
incident fantastically, turned the story into a romance, giving details
and conversations that could only have been obtained had he tracked
Bernadette from day to day with a camera snap-shotting her, and with
a note-book and pencil taking down everything heard in shorthand. He
made no scruple to falsify facts which did not suit him, and he had
his reward; the book sold with an unprecedented rapidity, and filled
his pockets with gold. Now the Jesuit Cros also wrote about Lourdes;
but his work, that appeared in 1901, while exposing many of Lasserre’s
falsehoods and exaggerations, had to be gone through and cut about by
his superiors before that it was suffered to be published.
It causes some surprise, and it convinces some people that miraculous
agency has worked in the grotto, in that so much water flows away from
the taps supposed to discharge that which issues from the spring in
the cave. This water is drawn off, evaporated, and sold in pastilles
(big boxes, 2 francs; _bonbonnières_, 75 cents). But does it really
come from the source pretended? The water of the cave is merely the
dripping and sweating of the walls and the oozing up of infiltration of
the Gave, that is little lower than the floor; but hence now issues a
copious spring.
An experienced scientist of Bayonne managed to break through the
wire netting at the end of the grotto that conceals the miraculous
spring from the public, and to pour in sufficient fluorescine to
discolour 10,000 litres of water. This would have revealed itself at
the taps infallibly, had this latter supply come from the grotto.
No discoloration, however, appeared. The gentleman who made this
experiment wrote to the superior of the Fathers of the Grotto to
inform him of the test he had applied. He received no answer. Then, in
a second letter, published in the _Reveil de Bayonne_, he offered to
pay the superior the sum of 40,000 francs if he would allow the matter
of the water to be properly investigated, and could prove that there
was no trickery. The water, he asserted, was drawn from the Gave higher
up stream. The Fathers shrank from the investigation.
My authority for this is Jean de Bonnefon. But I must add that I wrote
to that gentleman and also to the editor of the _Reveil de Bayonne_ to
learn the name of the man who offered the challenge, and also the date
when made, and that neither one nor the other has had the courtesy to
reply. The editor may, however, be dead, as the _Reveil_ has ceased to
appear.
Nevertheless, the charge of fraud has been made publicly by M. de
Bonnefon, and it is incumbent on the French Government to see that no
trickery is used to impose on the religious public, and obtain of it
money under false pretences.
The Fathers of Garaison are no longer nominally in charge of the
grotto and all its belongings, but this is nominally only. They are
now called _vicaires_, under authorization of the Bishop of Tarbes.
The name is altered, that is all. Monte Carlo is under the protection
of the French Government. A German, Captain Weihe, has brought charges
against the Company of fraudulent action, of having the balls loaded
and of employing magnets. The French Government should insist before
extending its patronage to the gambling hell at Monte Carlo and to
the grotto of Lourdes to have the proceedings in both thoroughly and
impartially investigated. But both bring vast sums of money into the
country, and consequently the Government shuts its eyes upon both.
When the inventories were taken in the spring of 1906 the Bishop of
Tarbes gave instructions that no sort of opposition was to be offered
at Lourdes to the Government authorities counting up the silver hearts,
and crutches, etc., in the basilica and grotto. It mattered not to him
to have the feathers of the goose counted, so long as the goose itself
was not killed that laid the golden eggs. He was careful not to provoke
opposition, lest an inquiry should be made that might lead to awkward
disclosures.
Not that any amount of exposure of trickery--if trickery has been
resorted to--would disabuse the minds of the credulous. Human stupidity
is too crass for that; but it would relieve the French Government of
the discredit of conniving at dishonest proceedings.
Before Lasserre’s book had appeared, the Bishop of Tarbes had appointed
a commission to investigate the alleged marvels at Lourdes, but there
was not a name on the commission that could command confidence, only a
vicar-general, canons of the cathedral, and the like, not a single man
of science and of independent mind. When the bishop was satisfied--and
most easy to satisfy he was--he gave his sanction to pilgrimages to the
grotto, and Pius IX accorded indulgences to such as made the visit.
He did more; he instituted a liturgical office for 11 February, to be
inserted in the Breviary, in commemoration of the first apparition.
Consequently the Church of Rome is irrevocably committed to this great
delusion.
It was necessary to get rid of Bernadette; she was not indeed likely
to “faire des bêtises”; but, in her own interest, it was well that
she should be removed, lest her head should be turned, as people were
entreating her to perform miraculous cures. And it was quite possible
that she in her simplicity might let out compromising avowals--not
indeed that the whole thing had been got up as a fraud, for that it
was not, but might avow how greatly she had been influenced by the
suggestive action of the abbés Ader, Pomian, and Peyramale, all doing
their part in good faith, with no intent of deception but who, like
Ader, had become, conscious _après coup_ that they had brought this
affair about.
Bernadette was taken off and shut up in a convent at Nevers, at such
a distance from her home that there seemed no chance of relative or
acquaintance ever seeing her again. There she was retained very close;
hardly any one was permitted to visit her. Her health, always frail,
gave way in confinement, deprived of her mountain air, and she died
in 1879. When it was known that she was on her death-bed M. le Gentil
very kindly undertook to pay the expenses of her brother to Nevers,
so as to have a last look at his sister. Gentil accompanied him.
Nevers would seem to have been chosen expressly as a place where to
place Bernadette, so difficult is it to be got at from Tarbes--only by
cross lines and slow trains, with long waits at every change. However
difficult and tedious Gentil and Soubirous may have found it, making
their way thither by train, it was nothing to the difficulties caused
by wilful obstruction put in their way on reaching Nevers. Soubirous
went alone to the convent, and asked for the superior. She replied to
his demand for an interview with his dying sister, “It is against the
rules of the convent.”
Soubirous, timid as poor peasants are, returned to the hotel and told
M. Gentil his want of success. Soubirous went again to the convent and
was again refused. Then the two men called at the palace on the bishop.
He said, “I can do nothing. The superior is mistress in her house.”
Then Soubirous and his companion went again to the convent and entered
the parlour, where they declared firmly that they would remain till the
request was granted.
The superior in great agitation entreated them to depart and not
provoke a scandal. “I am but a feeble woman,” she said, “and the bishop
has forbidden me to allow you to see your sister.”
Throughout the day the two men remained at their post seated in the
parlour. Emissaries ran to and fro between the convent and the bishop’s
palace. The house was like a disturbed ant-heap. Sisters passed and
repassed, peeped in and withdrew. Voices were heard in discussion in
the passages. But the two men would not budge.
At last night drew on. It would never do to allow them to pass it in
this holy prison. At last, pale and trembling, the superior entered,
and said, “Monseigneur has consented.”
Soubirous was then conducted to the infirmary. The whole community of
twenty nuns, and all the serving sisters, were there crowded about the
bed. On it Soubirous caught a glimpse of the white face of his sister
with her great burning eyes looking at him, and tears rolling down her
cheeks. The dying girl in a feeble voice said, “The fathers will give
you work. They have promised it.” That was all. The head sank back on
the pillow, and more tears flowed. Soubirous was then hustled out of
the room, and he never more saw Bernadette.
To-day this man is well-to-do. He has a shop and a house, and fears
God and the Fathers of the Grotto. So ended this poor martyr to the
doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.[H] The annual number of pilgrims
who visit the grotto amounts to something over 600,000, and the
affluence increases every year. Trainloads of sick people leave Paris
in the month of August, when the principal pilgrimage takes place. But
all the festivals of the Blessed Virgin, and that of the Apparition,
inserted in the calendar with proper Mass, give occasion to solemnities
of exceptional grandeur, the most imposing feature of which is the
night processions so beautifully described by Zola. Hideous and vulgar
are basilica and chapel of the Rosary that have been erected over and
by the cave. The situation is exceptionally beautiful, and would lend
itself to a stately and well-proportioned church and pile of buildings;
but it has been used as an occasion for the display of architectural
ineptitude. Grotto and church are crowded with _ex votos_ memorials of
cures wrought there, cures that are reputed miraculous.
[H] Bonnefon, _Lourdes et ses tenanciers_. Paris, 1906. The
value of this book is in the second part, that contains
the hitherto unpublished documents from the Paris and
Departmental archives relative to the course of development
of the Lourdes story.
But who is to decide where the natural ends and the miraculous begins?
In the present condition of science we cannot draw the line between
the natural and the supernatural. None can plant his walking-stick at
a certain point and say that he has reached “ubi defuit orbis,” and no
man can declare the exact point “ubi defuit scientia.” We know that the
Maladetta is in Spain, and that the Vingemale is in France, because the
mountain chain has been surveyed, and the line of demarcation drawn
between Spain and France. Such a tree, such a rock, such a hamlet,
we know for certain is in one or other of these countries. But there
is no such boundary in Nature. Where does the vegetable realm end
and the animal kingdom begin? Psychology and physiology overlap and
interpenetrate one another. The body acts on the mind, and the mind
on the body. Those who come to Lourdes come in a condition of nervous
exaltation, in a fever of faith and hope; not only so, but they come in
crowds, and the magnetic, electric influence exercised by great masses
of men and women on one another, is prodigious, when all are actuated
by the same impulse.
That cures have been wrought at Lourdes I do not doubt. Similar and as
many, and as genuine cures were wrought of old in pagan temples, which
were also crowded with _ex votos_.
And what guarantee have we that these cures have been permanent? A man
with a rheumatic leg prays at the cave, dips in the dirty pool, feels
that he can walk, and hangs up his crutches. Next day he is as much
crippled as before, but he has not the courage to go back to the grotto
and resume his crutch; he orders another from Paris.
But that some of the cures are permanent need not be doubted. The
effect of imagination on the body is immense. Every nervous person can
make himself ill by imagining himself to be ill; and a good many can
get well by persuading themselves that they are convalescent. There was
much truth in Mrs. Chick’s saying that Mrs. Dombey died because “dear
Fanny wouldn’t make an effort.”