Line from Lourdes turns north—Argelez glacier—The Lavedan—The Seven Valleys—Lourdes of old—The castle—Held by the English—Attacked by the Duke of Anjou—Held by Saracens—Besieged by Charlemagne—The Grotto—Bernadette Soubirous—The curé Ader—The apparition expected—The vision—Repeated—Crowds attend Bernadette—The spring—Mud—Price of the water—Je suis l’Immaculée Conception—Explanation—Compromising pamphlet suppressed—The Abbé Ader removed—La Salette—Similar visions seen by Huguenots—Doctor Dozous—The Empress and Prince Imperial—The Emperor patronizes the Grotto—Disappearance of documents—Laserre—His book a romance—The Jesuit Cros exposes it—The water of the spring—Drawn from the Gave—The Bishop’s commission—Pius IX appoints a festival in honour of the apparition—Removal of Bernadette to Nevers—Her brother refused permission to see her—Forces his way in—Last scene—The procession—Where the natural ends and the supernatural begins—No guarantee that the cures are permanent.
As the train sweeps into the station at Lourdes, on the right side, a few feet above the Gave, may be seen the twinkling lights of the Grotto of Massabielle, about which presently.
From the station of Lourdes the line turns north to Tarbes and Toulouse, along what was the ancient course of the Gave, a course that is patent to the eye, till the Argelez glacier threw up a barrier of morraine that deflected the river, and sent it careering to the west.
THE BASILICA, LOURDES
Lourdes stands at the entrance to and is the key to the Lavedan, so called from abies, the pines that once clothed the mountain-sides. The Lavedan is fertile. It is the trunk whence branch out numerous valleys that run up to the roots of the mountains and receive their water. But Lavedan formed a republic of seven of these valleys—Batsouriguère, Castelloubon (through which flows the Nès), Estrom de Salles, Azun, Saint Savin, Devantaïgue, and Barèges.
“Count” Henri Russell-Killough, in his Fortnight Among the Pyrenees, describes the Lavedan.
“Vine, fig trees, cherry trees, poplars, willows, elms, walnuts, maize, all meet here, and vegetation rises nearly to the tops of the mountains. On a fine day the whole thing looks like a modern Eden.”
I remember Lourdes before it was “invented” by Bernadette Soubirous and the curé Peyramale. It was a dead place, with narrow streets, very dirty, clustered about the rock on which stands the castle. Although the true capital of the Lavedan, the market for all the produce of the Seven Valleys, yet it seemed to be tenanted only by beggars.
Lourdes commands the roads which here unite from Argelez, Tarbes, Pau, and Bagnères. It was a place of great military importance, and was the last stronghold in Guyenne retained by the English. It did not surrender till 1418. The castle had been given to the English by the French king John as part of his ransom, in conformity with the Treaty of Bretigny, 1360, when the towns and barons of Gascony were required to swear allegiance to the Black Prince, as representative of the English king. After awhile the country rose in revolt, exasperated by the exactions of the English, and the Duke of Anjou, brother of Charles V, supported the Bigorriens.