"Miraculous cures are still constantly occurring. Clémence is going to-morrow to find out for me a boy whose limbs were distorted and who was made whole. I wish to hear from his own lips about the wonderful cure; but here people are accustomed to all this, and any particular miraculous cure does not strike them as extraordinary. The facts in this case are that the boy was the son of a baker, eight years old, who, with limbs all distorted and suffering acutely, was carried by his parents to Ars. The Vicar-General and several of the clergy were at the church-door when the carriage drove up with this poor cripple in it. His mother carried him to the altar-rail and endeavoured to place him on his knees, but the boy could hardly keep himself in a kneeling posture owing to his distorted limbs, and seemed to swing first to the right and then to the left. When mass was ended he said, 'I am better,' and was led, being supported, to the hotel, where he was laid upon a bed. His mother, remaining in the room, after a while saw him looking upwards intently, and for a long time he continued as if gazing at something above him. She called her husband and said, 'Come and see our child looking upwards; what is he looking at?' Suddenly the boy turned towards his mother and said, 'Lift me off the bed; I think that I am well and that I can walk,'—and so it was: she lifted him on to the floor, and the boy was cured, and has been well from that hour, and lives opposite this hotel at the baker's shop.
"The mistress told me—'Un jour le Curé d'Ars alla voir un curé de Lyon qu'on dit être saint. "Vous prendrez ma place," dit il. "Vous ferez encore plus de conversions."' I am going to Lyons to try to find out this curé. At Maçon also there is a certain 'Curé de S. Pierre,' who is greatly beloved, and of whom many beautiful stories are told.
"I think of you at different times in the day, and try to picture you, sometimes in the study, sometimes reading to Aunt Augustus, sometimes late in the evening sitting on the large sofa, with all your manuscripts on the table, and good Lea coming in to put up the curtains. When I think of all the late family troubles, I try to remember that God never allows anything to happen, however painful, unless it is for our good. It depends on ourselves to make use of every trial, so I trust that you may be able to forgive and forget—the last is the more difficult.
" ... You expect too much good from—— Do not expect too much. We must leave those to flutter like sparrows who cannot soar like eagles. It is S. Ambrose who says so."
My sister next wrote from Avignon:—
"Dec. 11, 1864.—Not further than Avignon! I was ill at Lyons and could not go on. There I had a most agreeable visitor, a M. Gabet, very zealous in the œuvres de la Propagation de la Foi. He spent two evenings with us, and told us much that was very interesting. He told me that he had lately received a donation from Dahomey, and he corresponds with missionaries in every part of the world. Auntie went up to the convent to fetch two friends of mine who were staying there, and I have been given a small medal of the Curé d'Ars blessed by himself."
My sister did not reach Rome till the second week in January.
"Jan. 16, 1865.—We arrived late on Tuesday night, coming voiturier from Leghorn, two long days, and very fatiguing. When we arrived at Leghorn a violent storm was raging, and we were obliged to give up going by sea, only sending Leonardo with the luggage. Auntie, Victoire, Clémence, and I travelled in a tolerable carriage. There are so few travellers that way, that at Orbetello, where we slept, the excitement was intense, the women wishing to examine dress and coiffure, to know the ultima moda. The carriage was quite mobbed, the voiturier having declared it was a gran signora. 'La vogliamo vedere,' the people cried out, and pushed and struggled. It seemed so strange to return to a country where so little could create such an excitement. I was carried upstairs, so terribly tired with the incessant shaking. We slept also at Civita Vecchia, whence Victoire and Clémence went on to Rome by an early train, Auntie and I following late. It was quite dark as we drove up to the Parisani, and the streets seemed perfectly silent. The porter came out saying 'Ben tornata,' and then his wife, with a scarlet handkerchief over her head, exclaiming 'Ben tornata' also, and we came upstairs without being heard by any one else. I rushed through the rooms, throwing open one door after another. In the little sitting-room Clémence and Victoire were sitting together, a look of misery on both faces. When I reached my own room I fell upon a chair: I could scarcely breathe. I heard Victoire cry out,'Mon Dieu! courage; c'est la volonté de Dieu: l'heure de votre mère a sonné, l'heure aussi du mari de Clémence a sonné.' She poured something down my throat and rubbed my hands, and brought me round by degrees. Clémence was sobbing violently for the old husband, whose death she had learnt on her arrival; Auntie was standing looking from one to the other, as if she did not realise how terrible was that evening: she had hoped that the joy of seeing Rome again would make me forget what was sad. Poor Victoire had made one great effort, and then she could scarcely speak for hours. I never saw such devotion to the memory of a relation or friend as her devotion to the memory of dear Mama; and then there was so much to remind her also of the good Félix, gone to his rest since our Roman home was broken up. I had dreaded this arrival for months, and had been glad to put it off from week to week, till I could put it off no longer. Now it is a pleasure to Victoire to unpack Mama's things and bring them to me, one after another, her eyes often filled with tears, and then she says, trying to compose herself, 'Que la volonté de Dieu soit faite.' And yet I cannot wish dear Mama back again. What I had lived for was that deathbed—that it should have God's blessing and that her soul should be saved. I used to think how glorified that soul might be, after so much suffering, if only at death resigned. But now I am going back to past thoughts, instead of telling my Augustus about the present.
"The old beggar-woman at San Claudio rushed towards me. 'L'ho saputo,' she said,'quella benedetta anima!' and she cried also, and then the sacristan of San Claudio, and he told me how Mama had died on one of the great days of San Claudio—the feast of Notre Dame de Bon Conseil—our Lady's altar under that title being the altar where Mama had knelt for so many years: all have been struck by this."