V.
In 1858, the eleventh of February opened the week of profane rejoicing which from time immemorial has preceded the austerities of Lent. It was the Jeudi-Gras, or Thursday before Quinquagesima. The weather was cold and slightly overcast, but very calm. The clouds hung motionless in the heavens; there was no breeze abroad; and the atmosphere was perfectly still. At times a few drops of rain fell from the skies. This day is celebrated by special privilege in the diocese of Tarbes as the feast of the illustrious shepherdess of France, St. Genevieve.[288]
Eleven o'clock in the morning had already sounded from the church tower of Lourdes.
While all the neighborhood was preparing for the festivities, one family of poor people who lived as tenants of a miserable dwelling in the Rue des Petits-Fossés, had not even enough wood to cook their scanty dinner. The father, still a young man, was by trade a miller, and had for some time endeavored to run a little mill which he had leased on one of the streamlets that go to make up the Gave. But his business exacted advances, the people being accustomed to have their wheat ground on credit; and the poor miller had been forced to give the mill back to the firm, and his labor, instead of putting him in better circumstances, had only helped to throw him into utter poverty. Waiting for brighter days, he labored—not at his own place, for he had no property, not even a small garden—but at various places belonging to his neighbors, who employed him occasionally as a day laborer. His name was François Soubirous, and he was married to a faithful wife, Louise Castérot, who was a good Christian, and kept up his courage by loving sympathy. They had four children: two daughters, the elder of whom was fourteen years of age; and two boys, still quite young, the smaller being scarcely four years old.
For fifteen days only, had their older daughter, a puny child from infancy, lived with them. This is the little girl who is to play an important part in this narrative, and we have carefully studied all the details and particulars of her life. At the time of her birth, her mother, being ill, was unable to nurse the child, and she was consequently sent to the neighboring village of Bartrès. Here the infant remained after being weaned. Louise Soubirous, having become a mother for the second time, would have been kept at home by the care of two children and hindered from going out to daily service or to the fields, which, however, would not be the case if her care were limited to one. Accordingly the parents left their first-born at Bartrès. They paid for her support, sometimes in money, more often in kind, five francs a month.
When the little girl grew old enough to be useful, and the question arose as to bringing her home, the good peasants who had reared her found themselves attached to her, and, considering her as one of their own, no longer charged her parents any thing, and employed her to tend their sheep. Thus she grew up in her adopted family, passing her days in solitude on the lonely hill-tops, where her humble flock grazed.
Of prayers she knew none except the rosary. Whether her foster-mother had recommended it to her, or whether it was the dictate of her pure and innocent heart, she kept up the hourly practice of reciting this prayer of the simple. Then she amused herself with those natural playthings which kind providence furnishes for the children of the poor, and with which they are more content than their richer cousins with costly toys. She played with the pebbles, piling up miniature castles, with the flowers which she culled on every side, with the water of the brooklet, where she launched and followed great fleets of leaf-boats; besides, she had her pets among the flock. "Of all my lambs," she said, "there is one that I prefer to all the rest." "And which is it?" asked somebody. "The one that I most love is the smallest one." And she delighted in fondling and caressing it. She herself was among children like her own darling in the flock. Although she was already fourteen years old, she seemed no more than eleven or twelve. Without being rendered infirm, she was subject to asthmatic affections, which at times caused her great pain. She bore her ills patiently and accepted her physical sufferings with that resignation which seems so difficult to the rich, but to the needy so very natural.
In this innocent and silent school the poor shepherdess learned that which the world knows not; the simplicity of soul which pleases the heart of God. Far from every impure influence, conversing with the Blessed Virgin Mary, passing her time in crowning her with prayers and telling her chaplet, this little maid preserved that absolute purity and baptismal innocence which the breath of the world so easily tarnishes, even in the best. Such was this childish soul, bright and calm as the unknown lakes which lie hidden among lofty mountains and silently reflect the splendors of heaven. "Blessed are the clean of heart," says the Gospel; "for they shall see God."
These great gifts are concealed treasures, and the humility which possesses them is often unconscious of their presence. The little girl of fourteen years charmed all who happened to approach her, and yet she was entirely unaware of it. She considered herself as the least and most backward of her age. Indeed, she did not know how to read or write. Moreover, she was an entire stranger to the French tongue, and knew only her own poor patois of the Pyrenees. She had never learned the catechism, and in this respect her ignorance was extraordinary. The Our Father, Hail Mary, Apostles' Creed, and Glory be to the Father, which make up the chaplet, constituted the sum of her religious knowledge. Hence it is unnecessary to add that she had not yet made her first communion. It was to prepare her for this, that the Soubirous determined to bring her home, in spite of their poverty, and send her to the catechetical instructions at Lourdes.
She had now been for two weeks under her father's roof. Alarmed by her asthma and her frail appearance, her mother watched over her with particular care. While the other children went barefoot in their sabots, (wooden shoes,) she was provided with stockings; and while her sister and brothers went freely out of doors, she was constantly employed in the house. The child, accustomed to the open air, would very gladly have gone out into it.
The day, then, was Jeudi-Gras, eleven o'clock had struck, and these poor people had no wood to cook their dinner.
"Go, and gather some sticks by the Gave or on the common," said the mother to Marie, her second daughter.
Here, as in many other places, the poor have a sort of customary right to glean the dried branches which the wind blows from the trees in the commune, and to the driftwood which the torrent leaves among the pebbles on its bank.
Marie put on her sabots. The eldest child, of whom we have been speaking, the little shepherdess of Bartrès, looked wistfully at her sister.
"Let me go, too?" she finally asked of her mother. "I will carry my little bundle of sticks."
"No," replied Louise Soubirous, "you have a cough, and you will catch more cold."
A little girl from a neighboring house, named Jeanne Abadie, about fifteen years of age, having come in during this conversation, was likewise preparing to go for wood. All joined in importuning, and the mother allowed herself to be persuaded.
The child at once covered her head with her kerchief, tied on one side, as is the custom among peasants of the south. This did not appear sufficient to her mother.
"Put on your capulet," said the latter. The capulet is a graceful garment worn by the dwellers in the Pyrenees. It is at once a hood and a mantle, made of very stout cloth, sometimes white as fleece, sometimes of a bright scarlet color; it covers the head and falls over the shoulders to the waist. In cold or stormy weather, the women use it to wrap their neck and arms, and, when the garment is too warm, they fold it up in a square and wear it as a cap upon their heads. The capulet of the little shepherdess of Bartrès was white.