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again. Then they caught hold of her and put her hand into the water by

force, and kept it there while she continued sobbing, with her face

covered with sweat. Three times did they plunge her hand into the

piscina, and each time they saw the needle moving along, till it came out

by the tip of the thumb. She shrieked, of course, because the needle was

moving though her flesh just as though somebody had been pushing it to

drive it out. And after that Celestine never suffered again, and only a

little scar could be seen on her hand as a mark of what the Blessed

Virgin had done."

This anecdote produced a greater effect than even the miraculous cures of

the most fearful illnesses. A needle which moved as though somebody were

pushing it! This peopled the Invisible, showed each sufferer his Guardian

Angel standing behind him, only awaiting the orders of Heaven in order to

render him assistance. And besides, how pretty and childlike the story

was--this needle which came out in the miraculous water after obstinately

refusing to stir during seven long years. Exclamations of delight

resounded from all the pleased listeners; they smiled and laughed with

satisfaction, radiant at finding that nothing was beyond the power of

Heaven, and that if it were Heaven's pleasure they themselves would all

become healthy, young, and superb. It was sufficient that one should

fervently believe and pray in order that nature might be confounded and

that the Incredible might come to pass. Apart from that there was merely

a question of good luck, since Heaven seemed to make a selection of those

sufferers who should be cured.

"Oh! how beautiful it is, father," murmured Marie, who, revived by the

passionate interest which she took in the momentous subject, had so far

contented herself with listening, dumb with amazement as it were. "Do you

remember," she continued, "what you yourself told me of that poor woman,

Joachine Dehaut, who came from Belgium and made her way right across

France with her twisted leg eaten away by an ulcer, the awful smell of

which drove everybody away from her? First of all the ulcer was healed;

you could press her knee and she felt nothing, only a slight redness

remained to mark where it had been. And then came the turn of the

dislocation. She shrieked while she was in the water, it seemed to her as

if somebody were breaking her bones, pulling her leg away from her; and,

at the same time, she and the woman who was bathing her, saw her deformed

foot rise and extend into its natural shape with the regular movement of

a clock hand. Her leg also straightened itself, the muscles extended, the

knee replaced itself in its proper position, all amidst such acute pain

that Joachine ended by fainting. But as soon as she recovered

consciousness, she darted off, erect and agile, to carry her crutches to

the Grotto."

M. de Guersaint in his turn was laughing with wonderment, waving his hand

to confirm this story, which had been told him by a Father of the

Assumption. He could have related a score of similar instances, said he,

each more touching, more extraordinary than the other. He even invoked

Pierre's testimony, and the young priest, who was unable to believe,

contented himself with nodding his head. At first, unwilling as he was to

afflict Marie, he had striven to divert his thoughts by gazing though the

carriage window at the fields, trees, and houses which defiled before his

eyes. They had just passed Angouleme, and meadows stretched out, and

lines of poplar trees fled away amidst the continuous fanning of the air,

which the velocity of the train occasioned.

They were late, no doubt, for they were hastening onward at full speed,

thundering along under the stormy sky, through the fiery atmosphere,

devouring kilometre after kilometre in swift succession. However, despite

himself, Pierre heard snatches of the various narratives, and grew

interested in these extravagant stories, which the rough jolting of the

wheels accompanied like a lullaby, as though the engine had been turned

loose and were wildly bearing them away to the divine land of dreams,

They were rolling, still rolling along, and Pierre at last ceased to gaze

at the landscape, and surrendered himself to the heavy, sleep-inviting

atmosphere of the carriage, where ecstasy was growing and spreading,

carrying everyone far from the world of reality across which they were so

rapidly rushing, The sight of Marie's face with its brightened look

filled the young priest with sincere joy, and he let her retain his hand,

which she had taken in order to acquaint him, by the pressure of her

fingers, with all the confidence which was reviving in her soul. And why

should he have saddened her by his doubts, since he was so desirous of

her cure? So he continued clasping her small, moist hand, feeling

infinite affection for her, a dolorous brotherly love which distracted

him, and made him anxious to believe in the pity of the spheres, in a

superior kindness which tempered suffering to those who were plunged in

despair, "Oh!" she repeated, "how beautiful it is, Pierre! How beautiful

it is! And what glory it will be if the Blessed Virgin deigns to disturb

herself for me! Do you really think me worthy of such a favour?"

"Assuredly I do," he exclaimed; "you are the best and the purest, with a

spotless soul as your father said; there are not enough good angels in

Paradise to form your escort."

But the narratives were not yet finished. Sister Hyacinthe and Madame de

Jonquiere were now enumerating all the miracles with which they were

acquainted, the long, long series of miracles which for more than thirty

years had been flowering at Lourdes, like the uninterrupted budding of

the roses on the Mystical Rose-tree. They could be counted by thousands,

they put forth fresh shoots every year with prodigious verdancy of sap,

becoming brighter and brighter each successive season. And the sufferers

who listened to these marvellous stories with increasing feverishness

were like little children who, after hearing one fine fairy tale, ask for

another, and another, and yet another. Oh! that they might have more and

more of those stories in which evil reality was flouted, in which unjust

nature was cuffed and slapped, in which the Divinity intervened as the

supreme healer, He who laughs at science and distributes happiness

according to His own good pleasure.

First of all there were the deaf and the dumb who suddenly heard and

spoke; such as Aurelie Bruneau, who was incurably deaf, with the drums of

both ears broken, and yet was suddenly enraptured by the celestial music

of a harmonium; such also as Louise Pourchet, who on her side had been

dumb for five-and-twenty years, and yet, whilst praying in the Grotto,

suddenly exclaimed, "Hail, Mary, full of grace!" And there were others and

yet others who were completely cured by merely letting a few drops of

water fall into their ears or upon their tongues. Then came the procession

of the blind: Father Hermann, who felt the Blessed Virgin's gentle hand

removing the veil which covered his eyes; Mademoiselle de Pontbriant, who

was threatened with a total loss of sight, but after a simple prayer was

enabled to see better than she had ever seen before; then a child twelve

years old whose corneas resembled marbles, but who, in three seconds,

became possessed of clear, deep eyes, bright with an angelic smile.

However, there was especially an abundance of paralytics, of lame people

suddenly enabled to walk upright, of sufferers for long years powerless to

stir from their beds of misery and to whom the voice said: "Arise and

walk!" Delannoy,* afflicted with ataxia, vainly cauterised and burnt,

fifteen times an inmate of the Paris hospitals, whence he had emerged with

the concurring diagnosis of twelve doctors, feels a strange force raising

him up as the Blessed Sacrament goes by, and he begins to follow it, his

legs strong and healthy once more. Marie Louise Delpon, a girl of

fourteen, suffering from paralysis which had stiffened her legs, drawn

back her hands, and twisted her mouth on one side, sees her limbs loosen

and the distortion of her mouth disappear as though an invisible hand were

severing the fearful bonds which had deformed her. Marie Vachier, riveted

to her arm-chair during seventeen years by paraplegia, not only runs and

flies on emerging from the piscina, but finds no trace even of the sores

with which her long-enforced immobility had covered her body. And Georges

Hanquet, attacked by softening of the spinal marrow, passes without

transition from agony to perfect health; while Leonie Charton, likewise

afflicted with softening of the medulla, and whose vertebrae bulge out to

a considerable extent, feels her hump melting away as though by

enchantment, and her legs rise and straighten, renovated and vigorous.

* This was one of the most notorious of the recorded cases and had

a very strange sequel subsequent to the first publication of this

work. Pierre Delannoy had been employed as a ward-assistant in one

of the large Paris hospitals from 1877 to 1881, when he came to

the conclusion that the life of an in-patient was far preferable

to the one he was leading. He, therefore, resolved to pass the

rest of his days inside different hospitals in the capacity of

invalid. He started by feigning locomotor ataxia, and for six

years deceived the highest medical experts in Paris, so curiously

did he appear to suffer. He stayed in turn in all the hospitals in

the city, being treated with every care and consideration, until

at last he met with a doctor who insisted on cauterisation and

other disagreeable remedies. Delannoy thereupon opined that the

time to be cured had arrived, and cured he became, and was

discharged. He next appeared at Lourdes, supported by crutches,

and presenting every symptom of being hopelessly crippled. With

other infirm and decrepid people he was dipped in the piscina and

so efficacious did this treatment prove that he came out another

man, threw his crutches to the ground and walked, as an onlooker

expressed it, "like a rural postman." All Lourdes rang with the

fame of the miracle, and the Church, after starring Delannoy

round the country as a specimen of what could be done at the holy

spring, placed him in charge of a home for invalids. But this was

too much like hard work, and he soon decamped with all the money

he could lay his hands on. Returning to Paris he was admitted to

the Hospital of Ste. Anne as suffering from mental debility, but

this did not prevent him from running off one night with about

$300 belonging to a dispenser. The police were put on his track

and arrested him in May, 1895, when he tried to pass himself off

as a lunatic; but he had become by this time too well known, and

was indicted in due course. At his trial he energetically denied

that he had ever shammed, but the Court would not believe him,

and sentenced him to four years' imprisonment with hard labour.

--Trans.

Then came all sorts of ailments. First those brought about by scrofula--a

great many more legs long incapable of service and made anew. There was

Margaret Gehier, who had suffered from coxalgia for seven-and-twenty

years, whose hip was devoured by the disease, whose left knee was

anchylosed, and who yet was suddenly able to fall upon her knees to thank

the Blessed Virgin for healing her. There was also Philomene Simonneau,

the young Vendeenne, whose left leg was perforated by three horrible

sores in the depths of which her carious bones were visible, and whose

bones, whose flesh, and whose skin were all formed afresh.

Next came the dropsical ones: Madame Ancelin, the swelling of whose feet,

hands, and entire body subsided without anyone being able to tell whither

all the water had gone; Mademoiselle Montagnon, from whom, on various

occasions, nearly twenty quarts of water had been drawn, and who, on

again swelling, was entirely rid of the fluid by the application of a

bandage which had been dipped in the miraculous source. And, in her case

also, none of the water could be found, either in her bed or on the

floor. In the same way, not a complaint of the stomach resisted, all

disappeared with the first glass of water. There was Marie Souchet, who

vomited black blood, who had wasted to a skeleton, and who devoured her

food and recovered her flesh in two days' time! There was Marie Jarlaud,

who had burnt herself internally through drinking a glass of a metallic

solution used for cleansing and brightening kitchen utensils, and who

felt the tumour which had resulted from her injuries melt rapidly away.

Moreover, every tumour disappeared in this fashion, in the piscina,

without leaving the slightest trace behind. But that which caused yet

greater wonderment was the manner in which ulcers, cancers, all sorts of

horrible, visible sores were cicatrised as by a breath from on high. A

Jew, an actor, whose hand was devoured by an ulcer, merely had to dip it

in the water and he was cured. A very wealthy young foreigner, who had a

wen as large as a hen's egg, on his right wrist, _beheld_ it dissolve.

Rose Duval, who, as a result of a white tumour, had a hole in her left

elbow, large enough to accommodate a walnut, was able to watch and follow

the prompt action of the new flesh in filling up this cavity! The Widow

Fromond, with a lip half decoyed by a cancerous formation, merely had to

apply the miraculous water to it as a lotion, and not even a red mark

remained. Marie Moreau, who experienced fearful sufferings from a cancer

in the breast, fell asleep, after laying on it a linen cloth soaked in

some water of Lourdes, and when she awoke, two hours later, the pain had

disappeared, and her flesh was once more smooth and pink and fresh.

At last Sister Hyacinthe began to speak of the immediate and complete

cures of phthisis, and this was the triumph, the healing of that terrible

disease which ravages humanity, which unbelievers defied the Blessed