III.
There remained for the official and officious foes of superstition one last weapon to use, one final struggle to make. Though the battle seemed to be certainly lost in the Pyrenees, perhaps the lost position might be regained in Paris, and the favor of public opinion secured throughout France and Europe, before the cosmopolitan assemblage of tourists and bathers, returning home, should pass their severe judgments on the other side. This was tried. A formidable attack was made by the irreligious press of Paris, the provinces, and other countries, upon the events at Lourdes and the Bishop's ordinance.
While the generals of the infidel army engaged in a decisive combat upon this vast scale, the duty of the Prefect of Hautes-Pyrenees, like that of Kellerman at Valmy, was to hold at all costs his line of operation, not to recede a single foot from it, and not to capitulate on any terms. The intrepidity of Baron Massy was well known, and it was understood that neither arguments nor the most surprising miracles would prevail over his invincible firmness. He would stand by his sinking ship to the last. The absurd had in him an excellent champion.
The Journal des Débats, Siècle, Presse, Indépendance Belge, and various foreign journals, also came manfully to the rescue. The smallest newspapers of the smallest countries considered it an honor to serve in this campaign against the supernatural. We find, in fact, among the combatants, a microscopic sheet called the Courant, published at Amsterdam.
Some, like the Presse, by the pen of M. Guéroult, or the Siècle, by those of MM. Bénard and Jourdan, attacked the very idea of miracles, declaring that they had had their day, that the discussion of them was no longer admissible, and to examine into a question which had already been decided by the light of philosophy was beneath the dignity of free examen. "Miracles," said M. Guéroult, "belong to a state of civilization which is almost gone by. Though God does not change, the conception which men form of him changes from age to age, according to the prevailing standard of morality and intelligence. Ignorant nations who do not understand the harmony of the laws by which the universe is governed imagine that they see continual exceptions to these laws. They think that God appears and speaks to them, or sends them a message by his angels, almost daily. But as society becomes more intelligent and better informed, and as the sciences based on observation come in to counteract the vagaries of the imagination, all this mythology disappears. Man does not on that account become less religious, but more so, though in a different manner. He does not any longer see gods and goddesses, angels and demons, face to face; but he seeks to discover the divine will as manifested in the laws of the world. Miracles, which at certain periods have been necessary to faith and served to convey the most important truths, have become in our day the bugbear of all serious conviction." M. Guéroult declared that, if he should be told that the most remarkable miracle was occurring close by his house on the Place de la Concorde, he would not take a step out of his way to see it. "If such occurrences," added he, "can occupy a place for a time among the superstitious trumpery of the ignorant masses, they only excite a smile of contempt among enlightened men, among those whose opinion is sure to be ultimately adopted by all the world."[131]
Other papers valiantly set to work to distort the facts. Though also attacking miracles in principle, the Siècle, in spite of the enormous yield of twenty thousand and odd litres a day, still remained, in its capacity of an enlightened and advanced journal, at the old thesis of hallucination and infiltration. "It seems difficult to us," said M. Bénard, very gravely, "to see a miracle in the hallucination of a little girl of fourteen, or in the oozing out of some water in a cave."
As for the miraculous cures, they were easily disposed of as follows: "Hydropathic physicians also claim to effect the most extraordinary cures by means of pure water, but they have not as yet proclaimed upon the house-tops that these cures are miracles."[132]
But the most curious example of the good faith of the free-thinkers, or of their sagacity in examining this matter, is to be found in the Dutch newspaper which we have mentioned above, and whose weighty narrative was reproduced by the French journals. Let us see how this friend of enlightenment enlightened the world by his account of the matter:
"A new manifestation, designed to excite and promote the fervor of the faithful in the worship of the Blessed Virgin, was imminent. The deliberations of the bishops on this point had resulted in the preparation of the famous miracle of Lourdes. It is well known that the Bishop of Tarbes appointed a commission of inquiry. The so-called conclusions of the report of the commission, which is composed of ecclesiastics and persons in the pay of the clergy, were prepared long before their first session. The pretended shepherdess Bernadette is not an innocent peasant, but a highly cultivated city girl of a very wily character, who has passed several months in a convent, where she was taught the part she was to play. There, before a small audience, rehearsals were made long before the public performance. As will be observed, nothing was wanting for the completeness of this comedy, not even the usual rehearsals. If at any time there is a scarcity of actors at Paris, the places can be admirably filled from the ranks of the superior clergy. However, the liberal press has made the matter thoroughly ridiculous, and it is not improbable that the clergy, in their own interest, will see the necessity of being prudent."[133] The information of the journals seems hardly to have been so accurate as that which secured the simple faith of His Excellency M. Rouland. The public, it is evident, were treated with no more respect than the minister. This is too often the way in which the opinion of those whom M. Guéroult called in his article "enlightened men," alluding, no doubt, to the torrent of light thrown upon them by the press, is formed.
Another point of attack besides the actual events and the possibility of miracles was the ordinance of the Bishop of Tarbes. Philosophy, in virtue of the infallibility of its dogmas, protested against examination, scientific study, and experiment. "When some crazy person sends a paper on perpetual motion or the squaring of the circle to the Academy of Science, the Academy passes to the order of the day without wasting time in criticising such lucubrations. And there is no more need of examination in the case of a supposed miracle. Philosophy, in the name of reason, passes to the order of the day. To examine the claims of the supernatural facts would be to admit their possibility and to deny its own principles. In such matters, proofs and testimony count for nothing. We do not discuss the impossible, but dismiss it with a shrug." Such was the central idea of the thousand varied forms assumed by the fiery and excited polemics of the irreligious press. Vainly did it persist in denial and perversion; it was afraid to examine. False theories prefer to remain in the fluctuation and fog of pure speculation. By some natural instinct of self-preservation, they fear broad daylight, and do not dare to descend with a steady foot upon the firm ground of the experimental method. They perceive that only defeat awaits them there.
In this desperate struggle against the evidence of facts and the rights of reason, the liberal mask of the Journal des Débats unfortunately fell off, and showed the depth of furious intolerance concealed under its philosophical exterior. The Journal des Débats, by the pen of M. Prévost-Paradol, was terrified in advance at the great weight which the report of the commission and the decision of the Bishop were sure to have, and accordingly appealed to the secular arm, beseeching Cæsar to put a stop to the whole thing. "It is evident," said he, "that a striking manifestation of divine power in favor of a religion makes strongly for its individual truth, for its superiority over others, and its incontestable right to govern souls. It is then an event of a nature to produce numerous conversions, both of dissenters and of infidels; in other words, it is an instrument of proselytism." He showed also the political importance of the result of the examination. "If this decision is favorable to the miracle, it will have a tendency to dissolve in that part of France the equilibrium now existing between the religious and civil powers. The ministers of a religion in favor of which such prodigies are authentically asserted are quite different sort of people from those which the Concordat provides for. They have a very different sort of authority over the people, and in case of any collision they exert a very different kind of influence from that of the council of state and the prefect."
"We have sufficiently shown," said the writer in the Débats, "the importance which the decision of the episcopal commission at Tarbes must have in various points of view. Now, there is a truth here which should be remembered, and of which M. de Morny has just very properly reminded the council-general at Puy-de-Dôme; that is, that nothing of importance can legally be done in France without previous authority from the administration. If, as M. de Morny very justly remarks, one cannot move a rock or dig a well without the consent of the administration, still less can one without its consent authorize a miracle or establish a pilgrimage. Any one who is concerned with religious matters, and especially with the opening of churches or schools of dissenting bodies, knows that the administration has not merely one enactment, but twenty or thirty, which makes it all-powerful in such cases. The meeting of the commission of the diocese of Tarbes can be prevented or its session can be dissolved in a hundred different ways by the Concordat, by the penal code, by the law of 1824, by the decree of February, 1852, by the central authority, by the municipal authority, by all conceivable authorities. The decision of this commission can also be annulled by the legal opposition of the administrative authority to the erection of a chapel or to the distribution of the miraculous water. The same authority can prohibit and break up all meetings of the people, and prosecute the originators of such meetings, etc." Having arrived at this point, having notified Cæsar and cried "caveant consules," the able writer resumed, for form's sake, his garb of liberalism. "What is our object," said he hypocritically, "in establishing this preventive right of the administration? Is it to urge them to use it? God forbid." And thus he crept, by a sort of secret passage, into the ranks of the friends of liberty.
The provincial journals echoed the sentiments of those of Paris. The battle became universal. The sergeants, corporals, and privates of the literary army pressed forward on the steps of the marshals of free thought. The Ere Impériale of Tarbes charged its blunderbuss with arguments from Paris, and fired them off at the supernatural every other day. The little Lavedan, also, had picked up a few grains of powder, rather dampened, it must be owned, by the water of the grotto, and did its best, aided, according to report, by Jacomet, to make its weekly penny-pistol effective.
The Univers, the Union, and the greater part of the Catholic papers bravely met their universal attack. Powerful talents lent themselves to the service of the yet more powerful truth. The Christian press re-established the facts and demolished the miserable quibbles of philosophic fanaticism.
"Meeting with some unexplained facts to which the faith or the credulity of the multitude attributes a supernatural character, the civil authority," said M. Louis Veuillot, "has decided without information, but also without success, in the negative. The spiritual authority comes in in its turn; it is its right and its duty to do so. But before making its judgment, it obtains information. It institutes a commission, an inquiry to examine the alleged facts, to study them, and determine their nature. If they have actually occurred, and are really supernatural, the commission will say so. If they have not occurred, or if they can be explained on natural principles, the commission will also acknowledge that such is the case. What more can our adversaries desire? Do they wish the Bishop to abstain from this examination, with a double danger before him, either of failing to recognize a signal favor which Almighty God would grant to his people, or of allowing a superstition to take root among them?
"The Bishop must necessarily have observed the strangeness of this conviction which had become so firm in the popular mind, upon the word of a poor and ignorant little girl; he must have asked also how these cures could be accounted for, obtained as they had been by means of a few drops of pure water, swallowed or externally applied.... And if there have been in fact no cures, it must be ascertained why the contrary has been believed. But, supposing that the water has no mineral ingredient, as is said by the chemists, and that, nevertheless, the cures are certain, as many sick people and several physicians attest, we do not see any difficulty in recognizing in the case something supernatural and miraculous, with all due respect to the explanations of the Siècle."
The vigorous champion contended with all his enemies at once. A touch of his pen sufficed to demolish the ridiculous idea of denying the possibility of miracles, and of refusing even an examination to these startling facts which a multitude had seen with their own eyes and attested on their knees. "If any one should tell M. Guéroult that a great miracle had been worked in the name of Christ upon the Place de la Concorde, he would not go, it seems, to see it. This is prudent in him certainly, for he is determined to remain incredulous; and in presence of such a spectacle he would not be so certain of finding a natural explanation which would dispense him from going to confession. But he would be still more prudent if he would witness the miracle and believe, yielding to the testimony which God in his mercy would thus give him. The people, however, will not care for his absence, and will not be at all disconcerted to hear that the thing is not at all extraordinary, and that they are the victims of delusion. Things would take the same course at Paris as at Lourdes; a miracle would be proclaimed, and, if there really had been one, it would have its effect; that is, many men who had not as yet 'sought to discover the divine will,' or who have not yet been successful in their search, would know and fulfil it; they would love God with their whole heart, soul, and mind, and their neighbors as themselves. Such is the object which God intends in working miracles; and it is so much the worse for those who refuse to profit by them.
"Those who reject the supernatural, said an ancient writer, destroy philosophy. They destroy it indeed, and especially since the advent of Christianity, because, wishing to take God out of the world, they have no longer any explanation for the world or for humanity. As to this God whom they exclude, some deny his existence, that they may get entirely rid of him; others make of him an inert and indifferent being, having nothing to require and requiring nothing from men, whom he abandons to chance, having created them in a freak of his disdainful power. Some, denying him in their very affirmation, as if they wished to satiate their ingratitude by doing him a double injury, pretend to find him in all things, which theory dispenses them from recognizing and adoring him anywhere in particular. Meanwhile, around them and even in themselves, humanity confesses its God. They reply by sophisms which are far from contenting them, by sarcasms the weakness of which they can hardly conceal from themselves, and at last their science and reason, driven back to the absurd, deprive them of their eyes and ears. They destroy all philosophy.... God, taking compassion on the faith of the weak which these false teachers would pervert, shows himself by one of those unusual displays of his power, which is nevertheless one of the laws of the world. They deny it. Look! we do not wish to see!... David said of the sinner, 'He has promised himself in his heart to sin; he refuses to understand, that he may not be forced to do well.'
"Ah! no doubt," elsewhere exclaimed the indignant logician, "there is an unfortunate multitude on whom all these commonplaces can be palmed off without difficulty; but there are also at Lourdes and elsewhere some readers whose common-sense is aroused, and who ask what will become of history, evident facts, and reason in such a system, with such a determination to deny everything without examination?
"As to preventing the episcopal commission from acting, we doubt if there are any laws conferring such a power upon the government; if there are, it will probably wisely abstain from using its power. On one hand, nothing could be more favorable to superstition than to do so; the popular credulity would then go astray without restraint, for there is no law which can oblige the Bishop to pronounce upon a fact about which he has not been able, and has even been forbidden, to inform himself.... There is only one course for the enemies of superstition, that is, to appoint a commission themselves, to make a counter-examination, and publish its result, in case, of course, that the one appointed by the Bishop concludes in favor of the miracle. For if it concludes that the reports are false, or that there is some illusion, this will not be needed."
The Catholic press, with a reserve truly admirable in the midst of the excitement of the dispute, refused to decide as to the actual merits of the case. It did not wish to anticipate the verdict of the episcopal commission; but confined itself to refuting calumnies, absurd stories, and sophisms, to defending the historical thesis of the occurrence of supernatural events, and to claiming in the name of reason the right of examination and freedom to ascertain the truth. "The event at Lourdes," said the Univers, "is not as yet verified, nor is its nature determined. It may have been a miracle, it may have been an illusion. The decision of the Bishop will settle the question.
"For our own part, we believe that we have answered all that has been seriously or even speciously said about the events at Lourdes. We shall leave the matter here. It was not right that the press should be allowed to heap around these facts all the lies it could think of; but it would not be becoming to give an answer to the abundance of its scoffing words. Wise men will appreciate the wisdom and good faith of the church, and as usual, after all the turmoil, truth will secure for itself in the world its little nucleus of adherents, 'pusillus grex,' which nevertheless is sufficient to maintain its ascendency in the world."[134]
It is obvious that, in the great polemical question regarding miracles which was being discussed on the occasion of the events at Lourdes, the two sides were acting on diametrically opposite plans.
On the one hand, the Catholics appealed to an impartial examination; on the other, the pseudo-philosophers feared the light. The former said, "Let us have an examination;" the latter cried, "Let us hear no more of this matter." The former had for their watchword liberty of conscience; the latter implored Cæsar to put a violent stop to this religious movement, and to stifle it, not by the power of arguments, but by brute force.
Every impartial mind, placed by its views or circumstances outside of the mêlée, could not help seeing with the greatest clearness that justice, truth, and reason were on the Catholic side. All that was necessary for this was, not to be blinded by the fury of the contest or by an immovable prejudice.
Although in the person of a commissary, a prefect, and a minister the administration had unfortunately taken a very decided part in this important affair, there still was a man of authority who had not had anything to do with it, and who was in the conditions of perfect impartiality, whatever his religious, philosophical, and political views might be. Whether there had been a manifestation of the supernatural or not at Lourdes made no difference in his calculations. Neither his ambition, self-love, doctrines, nor antecedents were concerned in this question. What mind is there which in such circumstances cannot be fair, and give justice and truth their rights? People do not violate justice or outrage truth except when they think it advantageous to do so, under some strong prompting of avarice, ambition, or pride.
The man of whom we speak was called Napoleon III., and was, as it happened, Emperor of the French.
Impassible as usual, silent as the granite sphinxes which watch at the gates of Thebes, he followed the discussion, observing the turns of the battle, and waiting for the public conscience to dictate, as it were, his decision.