After that all the plain had been recovered by the French, nothing remained to the English but the Castle of Lourdes, the Lavedan to Barèges, far removed from their base at Bayonne. The Duke of Anjou took the town easily, as it was defended merely by a pallisade, but could not capture the castle, which bade defiance to him during six weeks. He vainly endeavoured to buy the governor, and was forced to retire discomfited. The attempt made by Gaston Phœbus and the murder of Pierre Arnaut de Béarn by him has been already related.
But the castle has an earlier history. It is supposed to have been a Roman castrum. It was occupied by the Saracens, who retained it after their defeats at Poitiers and Tarbes, till the reign of Charlemagne. He besieged it. According to legend an eagle, flying above the highest tower of the castle, dropped a fish on the battlement at a spot still called Pierre de l’Aigle. Thereupon the Moorish commandant Mirad sent a messenger to Charlemagne to say that he might understand how vain were his expectations of reducing the garrison by famine, as the Prophet himself provided it with food.
Charlemagne did not accept this view of the incident, and continued the investment till the castle surrendered. The Bishop of Le Puy had promised Charles the aid of Our Lady of Puy, if properly considered. “Give her something,” said he, “if it be but a tuft of grass from the castle wall.”
Mirad and the garrison put wisps of hay about the points of their lances, in token of submission. Then Charles bade the bishop open his lap and threw into it all the hay from the spear-heads. This was in 778.
In the eighteenth century the castle (Mirabel is its name) was converted into a state prison, and it became the Bastille of Gascony. Since the empire it has served as a barrack for a small garrison.
But it is not the castle that now attracts visitors to Lourdes, but the Grotto of Massabiel, the story of which must be told briefly.
Bernadette Soubirous was the daughter of a drunken, dishonest miller, who had lost his mill through speculation, and had been imprisoned. He and his family were living as pensioners on the Abbé Peyramale, curé of Lourdes, in a wretched cottage in a back street—five persons huddled into one room. Bernarde, afterwards called Bernadette, was an under-sized, ill-fed, unhealthy child of limited intelligence and utterly uneducated. For some reason never explained she was sent to Bartrès, where she was employed in tending sheep. There she attracted the attention of the curé Ader, who repeatedly declared his conviction that she was just the sort of person to be vouchsafed a vision like that seen by the shepherd children of La Salette.
At the end of January, 1858, the Abbé Ader sent Bernadette, then aged fourteen, back to Lourdes, where she was at once taken in hand by one of the vicaires of the place, the Abbé Pomian, who became her confessor and director.
Singularly, perhaps significantly, on 28 December, 1857, M. Falconnet, procureur général at Lourdes deemed it expedient to send a report to the procureur impériale at Pau, that something was brewing in the place. This is his letter:—
“I have been informed that manifestations of a supernatural character and of a miraculous aspect are being prepared for the end of this year. I would advise you to take measures that the facts should be closely watched. I must know the details so as to be aware under what articles of the penal code prosecution is possible. I fear that little help can be gained from the administration civil or religious. Our duty is to do all in our power to stop the recurrence of such scandals as those of La Salette, the more so as the religious intrigue is a means of hiding one that is political.”