Ice peaks of the Pyrenees
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood
A short half-hour's ride and then Lourdes, without doubt one of the most dismal and melancholy places in the world. We are certain that nothing would ever draw us there again. For many, the trip is a pilgrimage of faith; others go from curiosity; but for so many suffering thousands the miraculous spring at Lourdes is the goal of anxious hopes. They gather from all parts of France, from England, Scotland, and Ireland, and even from distant parts of Europe. Last year there were over six hundred thousand visitors. Around us, on that afternoon, we saw the sick and the dying. Some were hobbling along on crutches, others walking helplessly with sightless eyes. Many were being carried on stretchers, and there were sights that we would rather not mention. It seemed as if all the diseases to which mortal humanity is heir were represented in that pathetic throng. The following newspaper account describes the pilgrimage which left Paris in August, 1913:
"The great Austerlitz Railway station in Paris presented a strange and terrible scene—and above all, a distressingly pitiful one—yesterday afternoon, when the annual pilgrimage to Lourdes set forth on the long journey to the little Pyrenean village. During last night thirty-three special long trains converged on Lourdes from every quarter of France. Every train ran slowly because of the many sick people on board. And this morning all the trains will reach their destination and will discharge their pilgrims at the station near the shrine.
"From two to four o'clock, the greater part of the Austerlitz station was given up entirely to the pilgrims. The railway servants withdrew, and their places were taken by hundreds of saintly faced Little Sisters of the Assumption, and brave men of all ages and all ranks in life, all wearing the broad armlet that denoted their self-sacrificing service to the sick and helpless. One by one, on stretchers, in bath chairs, over a thousand suffering people, men and women of all ages, youths and little children, entered the great hall of the station.
"Each, as he or she is brought in, is laid upon a bench transformed into an ambulance, to await the departure of the train. A silence that is almost oppressive falls upon the usually noisy station; people speak in whispers, and move with silent feet.
"Then the train—the long white train for the grands malades—moves softly in to the platform, and each poor human parcel is gently convoyed to its allotted place. Eventually, the long task is over, and then came the last moving ceremony. The Cardinal Archbishop of Paris passed slowly down the train and blessed the sick within it. A moment after, without a whistle or a sound, the long white train moved out.
"Eight other equally long trains followed, the last bearing at the rear the Red Cross flag."
We watched the procession forming to move toward the sacred miraculous spring, such a sad procession,—the halt, the maimed, and the blind, who had come, many of them, thousands of miles to bathe in the icy waters and be healed. Attendants passed us, carrying a sick man on a stretcher; the eyes were closed, the features white and fixed. We saw a mother clasping a sick child; she also joined the slow, pitiful procession. Where will you find such a picture of human suffering! It was all like the incurable ward of a vast open-air hospital.