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from among the living, and whose corpse in its turn was condemned to

exile! And how Pierre pitied her, that daughter of misery, who seemed to

have been chosen only that she might suffer in her life and in her death!

Even admitting that an unique, persistent will had not compelled her to

disappear, still guarding her even in her tomb, what a strange succession

of circumstances there had been--how it seemed as if someone, uneasy at

the idea of the immense power she might grasp, had jealously sought to

keep her out of the way! In Pierre's eyes she remained the chosen one,

the martyr; and if he could no longer believe, if the history of this

unfortunate girl sufficed to complete within him the ruin of his faith,

it none the less upset him in all his brotherly love for mankind by

revealing a new religion to him, the only one which might still fill his

heart, the religion of life, of human sorrow.

Just then, before leaving the room, Doctor Chassaigne exclaimed: "And

it's here that one must believe, my dear child. Do you see this obscure

hole, do you think of the resplendent Grotto, of the triumphant Basilica,

of the town built, of the world created, the crowds that flock to

Lourdes! And if Bernadette was only hallucinated, only an idiot, would

not the outcome be more astonishing, more inexplicable still? What! An

idiot's dream would have sufficed to stir up nations like this! No! no!

The Divine breath which alone can explain prodigies passed here."

Pierre was on the point of hastily replying "Yes!" It was true, a breath

had passed there, the sob of sorrow, the inextinguishable yearning

towards the Infinite of hope. If the dream of a suffering child had

sufficed to attract multitudes, to bring about a rain of millions and

raise a new city from the soil, was it not because this dream in a

measure appeased the hunger of poor mankind, its insatiable need of being

deceived and consoled? She had once more opened the Unknown, doubtless at

a favourable moment both socially and historically; and the crowds had

rushed towards it. Oh! to take refuge in mystery, when reality is so

hard, to abandon oneself to the miraculous, since cruel nature seems

merely one long injustice! But although you may organise the Unknown,

reduce it to dogmas, make revealed religions of it, there is never

anything at the bottom of it beyond the appeal of suffering, the cry of

life, demanding health, joy, and fraternal happiness, and ready to accept

them in another world if they cannot be obtained on earth. What use is it

to believe in dogmas? Does it not suffice to weep and love?

Pierre, however, did not discuss the question. He withheld the answer

that was on his lips, convinced, moreover, that the eternal need of the

supernatural would cause eternal faith to abide among sorrowing mankind.

The miraculous, which could not be verified, must be a food necessary to

human despair. Besides, had he not vowed in all charity that he would not

wound anyone with his doubts?

"What a prodigy, isn't it?" repeated the doctor.

"Certainly," Pierre ended by answering. "The whole human drama has been

played, all the unknown forces have acted in this poor room, so damp and

dark."

They remained there a few minutes more in silence; they walked round the

walls, raised their eyes toward the smoky ceiling, and cast a final

glance at the narrow, greenish yard. Truly it was a heart-rending sight,

this poverty of the cobweb level, with its dirty old barrels, its

worn-out tools, its refuse of all kinds rotting in the corners in heaps.

And without adding a word they at last slowly retired, feeling extremely

sad.

It was only in the street that Doctor Chassaigne seemed to awaken. He

gave a slight shudder and hastened his steps, saying: "It is not

finished, my dear child; follow me. We are now going to look at the other

great iniquity." He referred to Abbe Peyramale and his church.

They crossed the Place du Porche and turned into the Rue Saint Pierre; a

few minutes would suffice them. But their conversation had again fallen

on the Fathers of the Grotto, on the terrible, merciless war waged by

Father Sempe against the former Cure of Lourdes. The latter had been

vanquished, and had died in consequence, overcome by feelings of

frightful bitterness; and, after thus killing him by grief, they had

completed the destruction of his church, which he had left unfinished,

without a roof, open to the wind and to the rain. With what a glorious

dream had that monumental edifice filled the last year of the Cure's

life! Since he had been dispossessed of the Grotto, driven from the work

of Our Lady of Lourdes, of which he, with Bernadette, had been the first

artisan, his church had become his revenge, his protestation, his own

share of the glory, the House of the Lord where he would triumph in his

sacred vestments, and whence he would conduct endless processions in

compliance with the formal desire of the Blessed Virgin. Man of authority

and domination as he was at bottom, a pastor of the multitude, a builder

of temples, he experienced a restless delight in hurrying on the work,

with the lack of foresight of an eager man who did not allow indebtedness

to trouble him, but was perfectly contented so long as he always had a

swarm of workmen busy on the scaffoldings. And thus he saw his church

rise up, and pictured it finished, one bright summer morning, all new in

the rising sun.

Ah! that vision constantly evoked gave him courage for the struggle,

amidst the underhand, murderous designs by which he felt himself to be

enveloped. His church, towering above the vast square, at last rose in

all its colossal majesty. He had decided that it should be in the

Romanesque style, very large, very simple, its nave nearly three hundred

feet long, its steeple four hundred and sixty feet high. It shone out

resplendently in the clear sunlight, freed on the previous day of the

last scaffolding, and looking quite smart in its newness, with its broad

courses of stone disposed with perfect regularity. And, in thought, he

sauntered around it, charmed with its nudity, its stupendous candour, its

chasteness recalling that of a virgin child, for there was not a piece of

sculpture, not an ornament that would have uselessly loaded it. The roofs

of the nave, transept, and apse were of equal height above the

entablature, which was decorated with simple mouldings. In the same way

the apertures in the aisles and nave had no other adornments than

archivaults with mouldings, rising above the piers. He stopped in thought

before the great coloured glass windows of the transept, whose roses were

sparkling; and passing round the building he skirted the semicircular

apse against which stood the vestry building with its two rows of little

windows; and then he returned, never tiring of his contemplation of that

regal ordonnance, those great lines standing out against the blue sky,

those superposed roofs, that enormous mass of stone, whose solidity

promised to defy centuries. But, when he closed his eyes he, above all

else, conjured up, with rapturous pride, a vision of the facade and

steeple; down below, the three portals, the roofs of the two lateral ones

forming terraces, while from the central one, in the very middle of the

facade, the steeple boldly sprang. Here again columns resting on piers

supported archivaults with simple mouldings. Against the gable, at a

point where there was a pinnacle, and between the two lofty windows

lighting the nave, was a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes under a canopy. Up

above, were other bays with freshly painted luffer-boards. Buttresses

started from the ground at the four corners of the steeple-base, becoming

less and less massive from storey to storey, till they reached the spire,

a bold, tapering spire in stone, flanked by four turrets and adorned with

pinnacles, and soaring upward till it vanished in the sky. And to the

parish priest of Lourdes it seemed as if it were his own fervent soul

which had grown and flown aloft with this spire, to testify to his faith

throughout the ages, there on high, quite close to God.

At other times another vision delighted him still more. He thought he

could see the inside of his church on the day of the first solemn mass he

would perform there. The coloured windows threw flashes of fire brilliant

like precious stones; the twelve chapels, the aisles, were beaming with

lighted candles. And he was at the high altar of marble and gold; and the

fourteen columns of the nave in single blocks of Pyrenean marble,

magnificent marble purchased with money that had come from the four

corners of Christendom, rose up supporting the vaulted roof, while the

sonorous voices of the organs filled the whole building with a hymn of

joy. A multitude of the faithful was gathered there, kneeling on the

flags in front of the choir, which was screened by ironwork as delicate

as lace, and covered with admirably carved wood. The pulpit, the regal

present of a great lady, was a marvel of art cut in massive oak. The

baptismal fonts had been hewn out of hard stone by an artist of great

talent. Pictures by masters ornamented the walls. Crosses, pyxes,

precious monstrances, sacred vestments, similar to suns, were piled up in

the vestry cupboards. And what a dream it was to be the pontiff of such a

temple, to reign there after having erected it with passion, to bless the

crowds who hastened to it from the entire earth, while the flying peals

from the steeple told the Grotto and Basilica that they had over there,

in old Lourdes, a rival, a victorious sister, in whose great nave God

triumphed also!

After following the Rue Saint Pierre for a moment, Doctor Chassaigne and

his companion turned into the little Rue de Langelle.

"We are coming to it," said the doctor. But though Pierre looked around

him he could see no church. There were merely some wretched hovels, a

whole district of poverty, littered with foul buildings. At length,

however, at the bottom of a blind alley, he perceived a remnant of the

half-rotten palings which still surrounded the vast square site bordered

by the Rue Saint Pierre, the Rue de Bagneres, the Rue de Langelle, and

the Rue des Jardins.

"We must turn to the left," continued the doctor, who had entered a

narrow passage among the rubbish. "Here we are!"

And the ruin suddenly appeared amidst the ugliness and wretchedness that

masked it.

The whole great carcase of the nave and the aisles, the transept and the

apse was standing. The walls rose on all sides to the point where the

vaulting would have begun. You entered as into a real church, you could

walk about at ease, identifying all the usual parts of an edifice of this

description. Only when you raised your eyes you saw the sky; the roofs

were wanting, the rain could fall and the wind blow there freely. Some

fifteen years previously the works had been abandoned, and things had

remained in the same state as the last workman had left them. What struck

you first of all were the ten pillars of the nave and the four pillars of

the choir, those magnificent columns of Pyrenean marble, each of a single

block, which had been covered with a casing of planks in order to protect

them from damage. The bases and capitals were still in the rough,

awaiting the sculptors. And these isolated columns, thus cased in wood,

had a mournful aspect indeed. Moreover, a dismal sensation filled you at

sight of the whole gaping enclosure, where grass had sprung up all over

the ravaged, bumpy soil of the aisles and the nave, a thick cemetery

grass, through which the women of the neighbourhood had ended by making

paths. They came in to spread out their washing there. And even now a

collection of poor people's washing--thick sheets, shirts in shreds, and

babies' swaddling clothes--was fast drying in the last rays of the sun,

which glided in through the broad, empty bays.

Slowly, without speaking, Pierre and Doctor Chassaigne walked round the

inside of the church. The ten chapels of the aisles formed a species of

compartments full of rubbish and remnants. The ground of the choir had

been cemented, doubtless to protect the crypt below against

infiltrations; but unfortunately the vaults must be sinking; there was a

hollow there which the storm of the previous night had transformed into a

little lake. However, it was these portions of the transept and the apse

which had the least suffered. Not a stone had moved; the great central

rose windows above the triforium seemed to be awaiting their coloured

glass, while some thick planks, forgotten atop of the walls of the apse,

might have made anyone think that the workmen would begin covering it the

next day. But, when Pierre and the doctor had retraced their steps, and

went out to look at the facade, the lamentable woefulness of the young

ruin was displayed to their gaze. On this side, indeed, the works had not

been carried forward to anything like the same extent: the porch with its

three portals alone was built, and fifteen years of abandonment had

sufficed for the winter weather to eat into the sculptures, the small

columns and the archivaults, with a really singular destructive effect,

as though the stones, deeply penetrated, destroyed, had melted away

beneath tears. The heart grieved at the sight of the decay which had

attacked the work before it was even finished. Not yet to be, and

nevertheless to crumble away in this fashion under the sky! To be

arrested in one's colossal growth, and simply strew the weeds with ruins!

They returned to the nave, and were overcome by the frightful sadness

which this assassination of a monument provoked. The spacious plot of

waste ground inside was littered with the remains of scaffoldings, which

had been pulled down when half rotten, in fear lest their fall might

crush people; and everywhere amidst the tall grass were boards, put-logs,

moulds for arches, mingled with bundles of old cord eaten away by damp.

There was also the long narrow carcase of a crane rising up like a

gibbet. Spade-handles, pieces of broken wheelbarrows, and heaps of