A Book of the Pyrenees

CHAPTER IX

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.

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.