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Virgin to cure, but which she did cure, it was said, by merely raising

her little finger. A hundred instances, more extraordinary one than the

other, pressed forward for citation.

Marguerite Coupel, who had suffered from phthisis for three years, and

the upper part of whose lungs is destroyed by tuberculosis, rises up and

goes off, radiant with health. Madame de la Riviere, who spits blood, who

is ever covered with a cold perspiration, whose nails have already

acquired a violet tinge, who is indeed on the point of drawing her last

breath, requires but a spoonful of the water to be administered to her

between her teeth, and lo! the rattles cease, she sits up, makes the

responses to the litanies, and asks for some broth. Julie Jadot requires

four spoonfuls; but then she could no longer hold up her head, she was of

such a delicate constitution that disease had reduced her to nothing; and

yet, in a few days, she becomes quite fat. Anna Catry, who is in the most

advanced stage of the malady, with her left lung half destroyed by a

cavity, is plunged five times into the cold water, contrary to all the

dictates of prudence, and she is cured, her lung is healthy once more.

Another consumptive girl, condemned by fifteen doctors, has asked

nothing, has simply fallen on her knees in the Grotto, by chance as it

were, and is afterwards quite surprised at having been cured _au

passage_, through the lucky circumstance of having been there, no doubt,

at the hour when the Blessed Virgin, moved to pity, allows miracles to

fall from her invisible hands.

Miracles and yet more miracles! They rained down like the flowers of

dreams from a clear and balmy sky. Some of them were touching, some of

them were childish. An old woman, who, having her hand anchylosed, had

been incapable of moving it for thirty years, washes it in the water and

is at once able to make the sign of the Cross. Sister Sophie, who barked

like a dog, plunges into the piscina and emerges from it with a clear,

pure voice, chanting a canticle. Mustapha, a Turk, invokes the White Lady

and recovers the use of his right eye by applying a compress to it. An

officer of Turcos was protected at Sedan; a cuirassier of Reichsoffen

would have died, pierced in the heart by a bullet, if this bullet after

passing though his pocket-book had not stayed its flight on reaching a

little picture of Our Lady of Lourdes! And, as with the men and women, so

did the children, the poor, suffering little ones, find mercy; a

paralytic boy of five rose and walked after being held for five minutes

under the icy jet of the spring; another one, fifteen years of age, who,

lying in bed, could only raise an inarticulate cry, sprang out of the

piscina, shouting that he was cured; another one, but two years old, a

poor tiny fellow who had never been able to walk, remained for a quarter

of an hour in the cold water and then, invigorated and smiling, took his

first steps like a little man! And for all of them, the little ones as

well as the adults, the pain was acute whilst the miracle was being

accomplished; for the work of repair could not be effected without

causing an extraordinary shock to the whole human organism; the bones

grew again, new flesh was formed, and the disease, driven away, made its

escape in a final convulsion. But how great was the feeling of comfort

which followed! The doctors could not believe their eyes, their

astonishment burst forth at each fresh cure, when they saw the patients

whom they had despaired of run and jump and eat with ravenous appetites.

All these chosen ones, these women cured of their ailments, walked a

couple of miles, sat down to roast fowl, and slept the soundest of sleeps

for a dozen hours. Moreover, there was no convalescence, it was a sudden

leap from the death throes to complete health. Limbs were renovated,

sores were filled up, organs were reformed in their entirety, plumpness

returned to the emaciated, all with the velocity of a lightning flash!

Science was completely baffled. Not even the most simple precautions were

taken, women were bathed at all times and seasons, perspiring

consumptives were plunged into the icy water, sores were left to their

putrefaction without any thought of employing antiseptics. And then what

canticles of joy, what shouts of gratitude and love arose at each fresh

miracle! The favoured one falls upon her knees, all who are present weep,

conversions are effected, Protestants and Jews alike embrace

Catholicism--other miracles these, miracles of faith, at which Heaven

triumphs. And when the favoured one, chosen for the miracle, returns to

her village, all the inhabitants crowd to meet her, whilst the bells peal

merrily; and when she is seen springing lightly from the vehicle which

has brought her home, shouts and sobs of joy burst forth and all intonate

the _Magnificat_: Glory to the Blessed Virgin! Gratitude and love for

ever!

Indeed, that which was more particularly evolved from the realisation of

all these hopes, from the celebration of all these ardent thanksgivings,

was gratitude--gratitude to the Mother most pure and most admirable. She

was the great passion of every soul, she, the Virgin most powerful, the

Virgin most merciful, the Mirror of Justice, the Seat of Wisdom.* All

hands were stretched towards her, Mystical Rose in the dim light of the

chapels, Tower of Ivory on the horizon of dreamland, Gate of Heaven

leading into the Infinite. Each day at early dawn she shone forth, bright

Morning Star, gay with juvenescent hope. And was she not also the Health

of the weak, the Refuge of sinners, the Comforter of the afflicted?

France had ever been her well-loved country, she was adored there with an

ardent worship, the worship of her womanhood and her motherhood, the

soaring of a divine affection; and it was particularly in France that it

pleased her to show herself to little shepherdesses. She was so good to

the little and the humble; she continually occupied herself with them;

and if she was appealed to so willingly it was because she was known to

be the intermediary of love betwixt Earth and Heaven. Every evening she

wept tears of gold at the feet of her divine Son to obtain favours from

Him, and these favours were the miracles which He permitted her to

work,--these beautiful, flower-like miracles, as sweet-scented as the

roses of Paradise, so prodigiously splendid and fragrant.

* For the information of Protestant and other non-Catholic readers

it may be mentioned that all the titles enumerated in this passage

are taken from the Litany of the Blessed Virgin.--Trans.

But the train was still rolling, rolling onward. They had just passed

Contras, it was six o'clock, and Sister Hyacinthe, rising to her, feet,

clapped her hands together and once again repeated: "The Angelus, my

children!"

Never had "Aves" impregnated with greater faith, inflamed with a more

fervent desire to be heard by Heaven, winged their flight on high. And

Pierre suddenly understood everything, clearly realised the meaning of

all these pilgrimages, of all these trains rolling along through every

country of the civilised world, of all these eager crowds, hastening

towards Lourdes, which blazed over yonder like the abode of salvation for

body and for mind. Ah! the poor wretches whom, ever since morning, he had

heard groaning with pain, the poor wretches who exposed their sorry

carcasses to the fatigues of such a journey! They were all condemned,

abandoned by science, weary of consulting doctors, of having tried the

torturing effects of futile remedies. And how well one could understand

that, burning with a desire to preserve their lives, unable to resign

themselves to the injustice and indifference of Nature, they should dream

of a superhuman power, of an almighty Divinity who, in their favour,

would perchance annul the established laws, alter the course of the

planets, and reconsider His creation! For if the world failed them, did

not the Divinity remain to them? In their cases reality was too

abominable, and an immense need of illusion and falsehood sprang up

within them. Oh! to believe that there is a supreme Justiciar somewhere,

one who rights the apparent wrongs of things and beings; to believe that

there is a Redeemer, a consoler who is the real master, who can carry the

torrents back to their source, who can restore youth to the aged, and

life to the dead! And when you are covered with sores, when your limbs

are twisted, when your stomach is swollen by tumours, when your lungs are

destroyed by disease, to be able to say that all this is of no

consequence, that everything may disappear and be renewed at a sign from

the Blessed Virgin, that it is sufficient that you should pray to her,

touch her heart, and obtain the favour of being chosen by her. And then

what a heavenly fount of hope appeared with the prodigious flow of those

beautiful stories of cure, those adorable fairy tales which lulled and

intoxicated the feverish imaginations of the sick and the infirm. Since

little Sophie Couteau, with her white, sound foot, had climbed into that

carriage, opening to the gaze of those within it the limitless heavens of

the Divine and the Supernatural, how well one could understand the breath

of resurrection that was passing over the world, slowly raising those who

despaired the most from their beds of misery, and making their eyes shine

since life was itself a possibility for them, and they were, perhaps,

about to begin it afresh.

Yes, 't was indeed that. If that woeful train was rolling, rolling on, if

that carriage was full, if the other carriages were full also, if France

and the world, from the uttermost limits of the earth, were crossed by

similar trains, if crowds of three hundred thousand believers, bringing

thousands of sick along with them, were ever setting out, from one end of

the year to the other, it was because the Grotto yonder was shining forth

in its glory like a beacon of hope and illusion, like a sign of the

revolt and triumph of the Impossible over inexorable materiality. Never

had a more impassionating romance been devised to exalt the souls of men

above the stern laws of life. To dream that dream, this was the great,

the ineffable happiness. If the Fathers of the Assumption had seen the

success of their pilgrimages increase and spread from year to year, it

was because they sold to all the flocking peoples the bread of

consolation and illusion, the delicious bread of hope, for which

suffering humanity ever hungers with a hunger that nothing will ever

appease. And it was not merely the physical sores which cried aloud for

cure, the whole of man's moral and intellectual being likewise shrieked

forth its wretchedness, with an insatiable yearning for happiness. To be

happy, to place the certainty of life in faith, to lean till death should

come upon that one strong staff of travel--such was the desire exhaled by

every breast, the desire which made every moral grief bend the knee,

imploring a continuance of grace, the conversion of dear ones, the

spiritual salvation of self and those one loved. The mighty cry spread

from pole to pole, ascended and filled all the regions of space: To be

happy, happy for evermore, both in life and in death!

And Pierre saw the suffering beings around him lose all perception of the

jolting and recover their strength as league by league they drew nearer

to the miracle. Even Madame Maze grew talkative, certain as she felt that

the Blessed Virgin would restore her husband to her. With a smile on her

face Madame Vincent gently rocked her little Rose in her arms, thinking

that she was not nearly so ill as those all but lifeless children who,

after being plunged in the icy water, sprang out and played. M. Sabathier

jested with M. de Guersaint, and explained to him that, next October,

when he had recovered the use of his legs, he should go on a trip to

Rome--a journey which he had been postponing for fifteen years and more.

Madame Vetu, quite calmed, feeling nothing but a slight twinge in the

stomach, imagined that she was hungry, and asked Madame de Jonquiere to

let her dip some strips of bread in a glass of milk; whilst Elise

Rouquet, forgetting her sores, ate some grapes, with face uncovered. And

in La Grivotte who was sitting up and Brother Isidore who had ceased

moaning, all those fine stories had left a pleasant fever, to such a

point that, impatient to be cured, they grew anxious to know the time.

For a minute also the man, the strange man, resuscitated. Whilst Sister

Hyacinthe was again wiping the cold sweat from his brow, he raised his

eyelids, and a smile momentarily brightened his pallid countenance. Yet

once again he, also, had hoped.

Marie was still holding Pierre's fingers in her own small, warm hand. It

was seven o'clock, they were not due at Bordeaux till half-past seven;

and the belated train was quickening its pace yet more and more, rushing

along with wild speed in order to make up for the minutes it had lost.

The storm had ended by coming down, and now a gentle light of infinite

purity fell from the vast clear heavens.

"Oh! how beautiful it is, Pierre--how beautiful it is!" Marie again

repeated, pressing his hand with tender affection. And leaning towards

him, she added in an undertone: "I beheld the Blessed Virgin a little

while ago, Pierre, and it was your cure that I implored and shall

obtain."

The priest, who understood her meaning, was thrown into confusion by the

divine light which gleamed in her eyes as she fixed them on his own. She

had forgotten her own sufferings; that which she had asked for was his

conversion; and that prayer of faith, emanating, pure and candid, from

that dear, suffering creature, upset his soul. Yet why should he not

believe some day? He himself had been distracted by all those

extraordinary narratives. The stifling heat of the carriage had made him

dizzy, the sight of all the woe heaped up there caused his heart to bleed

with pity. And contagion was doing its work; he no longer knew where the

real and the possible ceased, he lacked the power to disentangle such a