第 12 页

hold on to one of the iron rails, and place her foot on the partition,

now on the right, now on the left. And she did not weary of it all, but

felt exceedingly happy and proud at the many exclamations which were

raised, the quivering admiration and religious respect which were

bestowed on that little piece of her person, that little foot which had

now, so to say, become sacred.

"One must possess great faith, no doubt," said Marie, thinking aloud.

"One must have a pure unspotted soul." And, addressing herself to M. de

Guersaint, she added: "Father, I feel that I should get well if I were

ten years old, if I had the unspotted soul of a little girl."

"But you are ten years old, my darling! Is it not so, Pierre? A little

girl of ten years old could not have a more spotless soul."

Possessed of a mind prone to chimeras, M. de Guersaint was fond of

hearing tales of miracles. As for the young priest, profoundly affected

by the ardent purity which the young girl evinced, he no longer sought to

discuss the question, but let her surrender herself to the consoling

illusions which Sophie's tale had wafted through the carriage.

The temperature had become yet more oppressive since their departure from

Poitiers, a storm was rising in the coppery sky, and it seemed as though

the train were rushing through a furnace. The villages passed, mournful

and solitary under the burning sun. At Couhe-Verac they had again said

their chaplets, and sung another canticle. At present, however, there was

some slight abatement of the religious exercises. Sister Hyacinthe, who

had not yet been able to lunch, ventured to eat a roll and some fruit in

all haste, whilst still ministering to the strange man whose faint,

painful breathing seemed to have become more regular. And it was only on

passing Ruffec at three o'clock that they said the vespers of the Blessed

Virgin.

"_Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genitrix_."

"_Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi_."*

* "Pray for us, O holy Mother of God,

That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ."

As they were finishing, M. Sabathier, who had watched little Sophie while

she put on her shoe and stocking, turned towards M. de Guersaint.

"This child's case is interesting, no doubt," he remarked. "But it is a

mere nothing, monsieur, for there have been far more marvellous cures

than that. Do you know the story of Pierre de Rudder, a Belgian

working-man?"

Everybody had again begun to listen.

"This man," continued M. Sabathier, "had his leg broken by the fall of a

tree. Eight years afterwards the two fragments of the bone had not yet

joined together again--the two ends could be seen in the depths of a sore

which was continually suppurating; and the leg hung down quite limp,

swaying in all directions. Well, it was sufficient for this man to drink

a glassful of the miraculous water, and his leg was made whole again. He

was able to walk without crutches, and the doctor said to him: 'Your leg

is like that of a new-born child.' Yes, indeed, a perfectly new leg."

Nobody spoke, but the listeners exchanged glances of ecstasy.

"And, by the way," resumed M. Sabathier, "it is like the story of Louis

Bouriette, a quarryman, one of the first of the Lourdes miracles. Do you

know it? Bouriette had been injured by an explosion during some blasting

operations. The sight of his right eye was altogether destroyed, and he

was even threatened with the loss of the left one. Well, one day he sent

his daughter to fetch a bottleful of the muddy water of the source, which

then scarcely bubbled up to the surface. He washed his eye with this

muddy liquid, and prayed fervently. And, all at once, he raised a cry,

for he could see, monsieur, see as well as you and I. The doctor who was

attending him drew up a detailed narrative of the case, and there cannot

be the slightest doubt about its truth."

"It is marvellous," murmured M. de Guersaint in his delight.

"Would you like another example, monsieur? I can give you a famous one,

that of Francois Macary, the carpenter of Lavaur. During eighteen years

he had suffered from a deep varicose ulcer, with considerable enlargement

of the tissues in the mesial part of the left leg. He had reached such a

point that he could no longer move, and science decreed that he would

forever remain infirm. Well, one evening he shuts himself up with a

bottle of Lourdes water. He takes off his bandages, washes both his legs,

and drinks what little water then remains in the bottle. Then he goes to

bed and falls asleep; and when he awakes, he feels his legs and looks at

them. There is nothing left; the varicose enlargement, the ulcers, have

all disappeared. The skin of his knee, monsieur, had become as smooth, as

fresh as it had been when he was twenty."

This time there was an explosion of surprise and admiration. The patients

and the pilgrims were entering into the enchanted land of miracles, where

impossibilities are accomplished at each bend of the pathways, where one

marches on at ease from prodigy to prodigy. And each had his or her story

to tell, burning with a desire to contribute a fresh proof, to fortify

faith and hope by yet another example.

That silent creature, Madame Maze, was so transported that she spoke the

first. "I have a friend," said she, "who knew the Widow Rizan, that lady

whose cure also created so great a stir. For four-and-twenty years her

left side had been entirely paralysed. Her stomach was unable to retain

any solid food, and she had become an inert bag of bones which had to be

turned over in bed, The friction of the sheets, too, had ended by rubbing

her skin away in parts. Well, she was so low one evening that the doctor

announced that she would die during the night. An hour later, however,

she emerged from her torpor and asked her daughter in a faint voice to go

and fetch her a glass of Lourdes water from a neighbour's. But she was

only able to obtain this glass of water on the following morning; and she

cried out to her daughter: 'Oh! it is life that I am drinking--rub my

face with it, rub my arm and my leg, rub my whole body with it!' And when

her daughter obeyed her, she gradually saw the huge swelling subside, and

the paralysed, tumefied limbs recover their natural suppleness and

appearance. Nor was that all, for Madame Rizan cried out that she was

cured and felt hungry, and wanted bread and meat--she who had eaten none

for four-and-twenty years! And she got out of bed and dressed herself,

whilst her daughter, who was so overpowered that the neighbours thought

she had become an orphan, replied to them: 'No, no, mamma isn't dead, she

has come to life again!'"

This narrative had brought tears to Madame Vincent's eyes. Ah! if she had

only been able to see her little Rose recover like that, eat with a good

appetite, and run about again! At the same time, another case, which she

had been told of in Paris and which had greatly influenced her in

deciding to take her ailing child to Lourdes, returned to her memory.

"And I, too," said she, "know the story of a girl who was paralysed. Her

name was Lucie Druon, and she was an inmate of an orphan asylum. She was

quite young and could not even kneel down. Her limbs were bent like

hoops. Her right leg, the shorter of the two, had ended by becoming

twisted round the left one; and when any of the other girls carried her

about you saw her feet hanging down quite limp, like dead ones. Please

notice that she did not even go to Lourdes. She simply performed a

novena; but she fasted during the nine days, and her desire to be cured

was so great that she spent her nights in prayer. At last, on the ninth

day, whilst she was drinking a little Lourdes water, she felt a violent

commotion in her legs. She picked herself up, fell down, picked herself

up again and walked. All her little companions, who were astonished,

almost frightened at the sight, began to cry out 'Lucie can walk! Lucie

can walk!' It was quite true. In a few seconds her legs had become

straight and strong and healthy. She crossed the courtyard and was able

to climb up the steps of the chapel, where the whole sisterhood,

transported with gratitude, chanted the _Magnificat_. Ah! the dear child,

how happy, how happy she must have been!"

As Madame Vincent finished, two tears fell from her cheeks on to the pale

face of her little girl, whom she kissed distractedly.

The general interest was still increasing, becoming quite impassioned.

The rapturous joy born of these beautiful stories, in which Heaven

invariably triumphed over human reality, transported these childlike

souls to such a point that those who were suffering the most grievously

sat up in their turn, and recovered the power of speech. And with the

narratives of one and all was blended a thought of the sufferer's own

ailment, a belief that he or she would also be cured, since a malady of

the same description had vanished like an evil dream beneath the breath

of the Divinity.

"Ah!" stammered Madame Vetu, her articulation hindered by her sufferings,

"there was another one, Antoinette Thardivail, whose stomach was being

eaten away like mine. You would have said that dogs were devouring it,

and sometimes there was a swelling in it as big as a child's head.

Tumours indeed were ever forming in it, like fowl's eggs, so that for

eight months she brought up blood. And she also was at the point of

death, with nothing but her skin left on her bones, and dying of hunger,

when she drank some water of Lourdes and had the pit of her stomach

washed with it. Three minutes afterwards, her doctor, who on the previous

day had left her almost in the last throes, scarce breathing, found her

up and sitting by the fireside, eating a tender chicken's wing with a

good appetite. She had no more tumours, she laughed as she had laughed

when she was twenty, and her face had regained the brilliancy of youth.

Ah! to be able to eat what one likes, to become young again, to cease

suffering!"

"And the cure of Sister Julienne!" then exclaimed La Grivotte, raising

herself on one of her elbows, her eyes glittering with fever. "In her

case it commenced with a bad cold as it did with me, and then she began

to spit blood. And every six months she fell ill again and had to take to

her bed. The last time everybody said that she wouldn't leave it alive.

The doctors had vainly tried every remedy, iodine, blistering, and

cauterising. In fact, hers was a real case of phthisis, certified by half

a dozen medical men. Well, she comes to Lourdes, and Heaven alone knows

amidst what awful suffering--she was so bad, indeed, that at Toulouse

they thought for a moment that she was about to die! The Sisters had to

carry her in their arms, and on reaching the piscina the

lady-hospitallers wouldn't bathe her. She was dead, they said. No matter!

she was undressed at last, and plunged into the water, quite unconscious

and covered with perspiration. And when they took her out she was so pale

that they laid her on the ground, thinking that it was certainly all over

with her at last. But, all at once, colour came back to her cheeks, her

eyes opened, and she drew a long breath. She was cured; she dressed

herself without any help and made a good meal after she had been to the

Grotto to thank the Blessed Virgin. There! there's no gainsaying it, that

was a real case of phthisis, completely cured as though by medicine!"

Thereupon Brother Isidore in his turn wished to speak; but he was unable

to do so at any length, and could only with difficulty manage to say to

his sister: "Marthe, tell them the story of Sister Dorothee which the

priest of Saint-Sauveur related to us."

"Sister Dorothee," began the peasant girl in an awkward way, "felt her

leg quite numbed when she got up one morning, and from that time she lost

the use of it, for it got as cold and as heavy as a stone. Besides which

she felt a great pain in the back. The doctors couldn't understand it.

She saw half a dozen of them, who pricked her with pins and burnt her

skin with a lot of drugs. But it was just as if they had sung to her.

Sister Dorothee had well understood that only the Blessed Virgin could

find the right remedy for her, and so she went off to Lourdes, and had

herself dipped in the piscina. She thought at first that the water was

going to kill her, for it was so bitterly cold. But by-and-by it became

so soft that she fancied it was warm, as nice as milk. She had never felt

so nice before, it seemed to her as if her veins were opening and the

water were flowing into them. As you will understand, life was returning

into her body since the Blessed Virgin was concerning herself in the

case. She no longer had anything the matter with her when she came out,

but walked about, ate the whole of a pigeon for her dinner, and slept all

night long like the happy woman she was. Glory to the Blessed Virgin,

eternal gratitude to the most Powerful Mother and her Divine Son!"

Elise Rouquet would also have liked to bring forward a miracle which she

was acquainted with. Only she spoke with so much difficulty owing to the

deformity of her mouth, that she had not yet been able to secure a turn.

Just then, however, there was a pause, and drawing the wrap, which

concealed the horror of her sore, slightly on one side, she profited by

the opportunity to begin.

"For my part, I wasn't told anything about a great illness, but it was a

very funny case at all events," she said. "It was about a woman,

Celestine Dubois, as she was called, who had run a needle right into her

hand while she was washing. It stopped there for seven years, for no

doctor was able to take it out. Her hand shrivelled up, and she could no

longer open it. Well, she got to Lourdes, and dipped her hand into the

piscina. But as soon as she did so she began to shriek, and took it out