V.
At the grotto the miraculous fountain continued to flow, abundant and clear, with that character of quiet perpetuity which is generally found in springs coming from the rock.
The supernatural apparition did not cease to assert its existence, and to prove it by benefits conferred.
The grace of God continued to descend visibly and invisibly upon the people, sometimes quick as the lightning which flashes through the clouds, sometimes gradual like the light of dawn.
We can only speak of those graces which were external and manifest.
At six or seven kilometres (four miles) from Lourdes, at Loubajac, lived a good woman, a peasant, who had formerly been accustomed to labor, but whom an accident had for eighteen months past reduced to a most painful inaction. Her name was Catherine Latapie-Chouat. In October, 1856, having climbed an oak to knock down some acorns, she had lost her balance, and suffered a violent fall, which caused a severe dislocation of the right arm and hand. The reduction—as is stated in the report and the official statement, which are now before us—though performed immediately by an able surgeon, and though it nearly restored the arm to its normal state, had nevertheless not prevented an extreme weakness in it. The most intelligent and continuous treatment had been ineffectual in removing the stiffness of the three most important fingers of the hand. The thumb and first two fingers remained obstinately bent and paralyzed, so that it was impossible either to straighten them or to enable them to move in the least. The unfortunate peasant, still young enough for much labor, for she was hardly thirty-eight, could not sew, spin, knit, or take care of the house. The doctor, after having treated her case for a long time without success, had told her that it was incurable, and that she must resign herself to give up the use of that hand. This sentence, from such a reliable authority, was for the poor woman the announcement of an irreparable misfortune. The poor have no resource but work; for them compulsory inaction is inevitable misery.
Catherine had become pregnant nine or ten months after the accident, and her time was approaching at the date of our narrative. One night she awaked with a sudden thought or inspiration. "An interior spirit," to quote her own words to myself, "said to me as it were with irresistible force, 'Go to the grotto! go to the grotto, and you will be cured!'" Who this mysterious being was who spoke thus, and whom this ignorant peasant—ignorant at least as far as human knowledge is concerned—called a "spirit," is no doubt known by her angel guardian.
It was three o'clock in the morning. Catherine called two of her children who were large enough to accompany her.
"Do you remain to work," said she to her husband. "I am going to the grotto."
"In your present condition it is impossible," replied he; "to go to Lourdes and return is full three leagues."
"Nothing is impossible. I am going to get cured."
No objection had the least effect upon her, and she set out with her two children. It was a fine moonlight night; but the awful silence, occasionally broken by strange and mysterious sounds, the solitude of the plains only dimly visible, and seemingly peopled by vague forms, terrified the children. They trembled, and would have stopped at every step had not Catherine reassured them. She had no fear, and felt that she was going to the fountain of life.
She arrived at Lourdes at daybreak, and happened to meet Bernadette. Some one telling her who it was, Catherine, without saying anything, approached the child blessed by the Lord and beloved by Mary, and touched her dress humbly. Then she continued her journey to the rocks of Massabielle, where, in spite of the early hour, a great many pilgrims were already assembled and were on their knees.
Catherine and her children also knelt and prayed. Then she rose, and quietly bathed her hand in the marvellous water.
Her fingers immediately straightened, became flexible, and under her control. The Blessed Virgin had cured the incurable.
What did Catherine do? She was not surprised. She did not utter a cry, but again fell on her knees, and gave thanks to God and to Mary. For the first time for eighteen months, she prayed with her hands joined, and clasped the resuscitated fingers with the others.
She remained thus for a long time, absorbed in an act of thanksgiving. Such moments are sweet; the soul is glad to forget itself, and thinks that it is in Paradise.
But violent sufferings recalled Catherine to the earth—this earth of sighs and tears, where the curse pronounced upon the guilty mother of the human race has never ceased to be felt by her innumerable posterity. We have said that Catherine was very near her confinement, and as she was still upon her knees she found herself suddenly seized by the terrible pains of childbirth. She shuddered, seeing that there would be no time to go even to Lourdes, and that her delivery was about to occur in the presence of the surrounding multitude. And for a moment she looked around with terror and anguish.
But this terror did not last long.
Catherine returned to the Queen whom nature obeys.
"Good Mother," said she simply, "you have just shown me so great a favor, I know you will spare me the shame of being delivered before all these people, and at least grant that I may return home before giving birth to my child."
Immediately all her pains ceased, and the interior spirit of whom she spoke to us, and who, we believe, was her angel guardian, said to her:
"Do not be alarmed. Set out with confidence; you will arrive safely."
"Let us go home now," said Catherine to her two children.
Accordingly she took the road to Loubajac, holding them by the hand, without intimating to any one her critical state, and without showing any uneasiness, even to the midwife of her own village, who happened to be there in the midst of the crowd of pilgrims. With inexpressible happiness she quietly traversed the long and rough road which separated her from home. The two children were not afraid of it now; the sun was risen, and their mother was cured.
As soon as she returned, she wished still to pray; but immediately her pains returned. In a quarter of an hour she was the mother of a third son.[12]
At the same time, a woman of Lamarque, Marianne Garrot, had been relieved in less than ten days, merely by lotions with the water from the grotto, of a white eruption which had covered her whole face, and which for two years had resisted all treatment. Dr. Amadou, of Pontacq, her physician, was satisfied of the fact, and was an incontestable witness of it subsequently before the episcopal commission.[13]
At Bordères, near Nay, the widow Marie Lanou-Domengé, eighty years old, had been for three years a sufferer from an incomplete paralysis in the whole left side. She could not take a step without assistance, and was unable to do any work.
Dr. Poueymiroo, of Mirepoix, after having ineffectually used some remedies to restore life in the palsied parts, though continuing his visits, had abandoned medical treatment of the case.
Hope, however, is with difficulty extinguished in the hearts of the sick.
"When shall I get well?" the good woman would say to Dr. Poueymiroo, every time that he came.
"You will get well when the good God sees fit," was the invariable reply of the doctor, who was far from suspecting the prophetic nature of his words.
"Why should I not believe what he says, and throw myself directly on the divine goodness?" said the old peasant woman one day to herself, when she heard people talking of the fountain of Massabielle.
Accordingly, she sent some one to Lourdes to get at the spring itself a little of this healing water.
When it was brought to her, she was much excited.
"Take me out of bed," said she, "and hold me up."
They took her out, and dressed her hurriedly. Both the actors and spectators in this scene were somewhat disturbed.
Two persons held her up, placing their hands under her shoulders.
A glass of water from the grotto was presented to her.
She extended her trembling hand toward the quickening water and dipped her fingers in it. Then she made a great sign of the cross on herself, raised the glass to her lips, and slowly drank the contents, no doubt absorbed in fervent and silent prayer.
She became so pale that they thought for the moment that she was going to faint.
But while they were exerting themselves to prevent her from falling, she rose with a quick and joyful movement and looked around. Then she cried out with a voice of triumph:
"Let me go—quick! I am cured."
Those who were holding her withdrew their arms partially and with some hesitation. She immediately freed herself from them, and walked with as much confidence as if she had never been ill.
Some one, however, who still had some fear of the result, offered her a stick to lean on.
She looked at it with a smile; then took it and contemptuously threw it far away, as a thing which was no longer of use. And from that day, she employed herself as before in hard out-door work.
Some visitors, who came to see her and to convince themselves of the fact, asked her to walk in their presence.
"Walk, did you say? I will run for you!" And, true to her word, she began to run.
This occurred in the month of May. In the following July, the people pointed out the vigorous octogenarian as a curiosity, as she mowed the grain, and was by no means the last in the hard labors of the harvest.
Her physician, the excellent Dr. Poueymiroo, praised God for this evident miracle, and subsequently, with the examining commission, signed the procès-verbal on the extraordinary events which we have just related, in which he did not hesitate to recognize "the direct and evident action of divine power."[14]