Notwithstanding the sensible assurances of the Sister's veracity, M. Aladel listened to these communications with mistrust, as he tells us himself, in the canonical investigation prescribed in 1836 by Mgr. de Quélen; he professed to consider them of little value, as if they had been the pious vagaries of a young girl's imagination. He told her to regard them in the same light, and he even went so far as to humble her, and reproach her with a want of submission. The poor Sister, unable to convince him, dared speak no more of the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin; she never mentioned the subject to him except when she felt herself tormented and constrained to do so by an almost irresistible desire.
"Such was the reason," says M. Aladel, "that she spoke to him concerning the matter but three times, although the visions were much oftener repeated." After thus relieving her heart, she became perfectly calm. The investigation also shows us that Sister Catherine sought no other confidant of her secrets than her confessor; she never mentioned them to her Superior or any one else. It was to M. Aladel Mary had directed her, to him only did she speak, and she even exacted of him the promise that her name would never be mentioned.[3]
After this pledge, M. Aladel related the vision to M. Étienne and others, but without designating the Sister's identity, directly or indirectly. We shall see later how Providence always guarded her secret.
These celestial communications, we may easily imagine, produced in the soul of Sister Labouré profound impressions, which usually remained even after she had finished her devotions, and which rendered her in some degree oblivious of what was passing around her. It is related that after one of these apparitions she rises like the others at the given signal, leaves the chapel, and takes her place in the refectory, but remains so absorbed that she never thinks of touching the meal apportioned her.
Sister Caillaud, third Directress, going her rounds, says bluntly to her: "Ah! Sister Labouré, are you still in an ecstasy?" This recalls her to herself, and the good Directress, who knows not how truly she has spoken, suspects nothing.
Meanwhile, Sister Catherine approached the end of her Seminary term, and in spite of her affirmations at once so artless and so exact, her Director always refused to credit them. She had the affliction of leaving the Mother House without being able to obtain anything, even a hope.
It was because the affair was graver than she thought; the supernatural origin of the favor he was directed to communicate to the public could be contested, and the prudent Director saw that in such a matter he could neither exact too many proofs, nor take too many precautions.
Sister Labouré was clothed with the holy habit in the month of January, 1831, and sent under the name of Sister Catherine to the Hospital d'Enghien in the faubourg St. Antoine. Here she could continue her communications with M. Aladel. This good father did not lose sight of her; though apparently giving no credit to his penitent revelations, he was studying her carefully to convince himself whether or not these visions were the product of a weak, enthusiastic mind and excited imagination. But the more he studied her, the more confident he felt that there was nothing of this in Sister Labouré. The judgment formed of her by the Directresses of the Seminary was, that she had a somewhat reserved but calm, positive character, which M. Aladel qualified as cold and even apathetic.
This last epithet, however, was not applicable to Sister Catherine, in whom her companions, on the contrary, recognized a very impulsive temperament. But his opinion proves, at least, that there was no excessive imagination. Moreover, she proved herself solidly grounded in virtue, whilst no one ever perceived anything extraordinary in her demeanor, and especially in her devotions.