Whether the police or administration had incited the false visionaries or were the innocent victims of universal suspicion, it is impossible to know with certainty; it is still more impossible to establish either opinion by authentic documents. In such cases the proof, if there be any, is always destroyed by interested hands. There are, consequently, no other means of getting at the truth, except the general appearance of things and the unanimous sentiment of the contemporary public, sometimes assuredly just, though often tinged by passion or infected with error. In view of this chaotic state of the elements, the historian can only relate facts both authentic and alleged, express his own doubts and scruples, and leave the reader to determine upon the most probable explanation.
Whatever the cause or hidden hand might have been which pushed forward two or three little ragamuffins to make seers of them, M. Jacomet, M. Massy, and his friends felt bound to magnify and spread their silly story. They endeavored to attract the attention of the people, and withdraw it from such grave events as the divine ecstasies of Bernadette, the bursting forth of the fountain, and the miraculous cures which had laid hold of popular faith. When the battle had been lost on one point, these able strategists sought to lure the enemy on to a field surrounded by ambuscades and mined in advance; in short, to make a diversion.
The sudden disappearance of the false visions and visionaries before the threatened scrutiny of M. Peyramale upset, for several days at least, the fond hopes of the free-thinking strategists. The common sense of the public remained firm on the true ground of controversy, and did not permit itself to be deceived. The enlightened intellect of Minister Rouland did not fare so well. What follows will explain how this independent spirit was overthrown.
MM. Jacomet and Massy were striving against a triumphant and irresistible force, and taxed the utmost resources of their genius to make out of these slight events a final pretext for repairing their losses and reassuming an offensive part. They sent to the Minister of Public Worship an exaggerated and fantastic account of these childish scenes.
Now, by an illusion barely conceivable in a politician acquainted with ordinary practice, M. Rouland placed blind confidence in their official reports. He was not without faith, although injudicious, one may say, in selecting the object of his trust. The philosopher Rouland had no faith in Our Lady of Lourdes asserting herself by cures and miracles, but he had perfect faith in Massy and Jacomet. These two gentlemen made him believe that, under the shadow of the Massabielle rocks, children officiated as priests, that the people, represented by creatures of dishonest life, crowned them with laurels and flowers, etc., etc.
They did not disguise the uselessness of violent measures against the general excitement of spirits. According to their account, material force was vanquished and the civil authority completely brought to naught. The religious authority alone could save the day by energetic action against the popular belief. Desperate as to their own straits, and little considering the dignity of a Christian bishop, they presumed to think that strong pressure from the upper heights of the administration could force Mgr. Laurence to condemn what had transpired and to follow their views. Accordingly they signified to the minister their judgment that the solution of all difficulties would be the direct interference of the prelate.
This was to push his excellency in the direction towards which, as is well known, he naturally inclined, viz., to mix himself in religious questions, and to foster the desire of making out a programme for the bishops.
The minister, although he had once been procureur-general, did not think of asking how it was that the police had not prosecuted in the courts the profanations which they reported. The strange abstinence of the magistracy in view of the pretended disorders did not occasion him the slightest suspicion.
Accepting with more than ministerial candor the romance of the police and the prefect, and imagining that he saw the whole truth; moreover, believing himself nothing less than a theologian, and, because Minister of Public Worship, something more than an archbishop, M. Rouland settled the whole affair in his cabinet, and wrote to Mgr. Laurence a letter, in all respects a worthy mate of the one he had formerly addressed to the prefect, and which we have cited. It was strongly impregnated with the same official piety, and whilst we read it to-day by the light of true history, we cannot restrain a smile at the manner in which rulers are sometimes hoodwinked and mocked by their inferior agents. Indeed, it is not without a sad irony that one sees the following letter written by the very minister who, in a short time, was to sign the permission to build a splendid church on the Massabielle rocks in eternal memory of the apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary:
"My lord," wrote M. Rouland, "the recent advice which I have received about that affair at Lourdes seems to me calculated to afflict deeply the hearts of all sincerely religious men. This blessing of rosaries by children, these public demonstrations in the first ranks of which are to be seen women of doubtful character, this coronation of the visionaries, and other grotesque ceremonies which parody the rites of religious worship, will not fail to open a free avenue of attack to Protestant and other journals, unless the central authority interferes to moderate the ardor of polemics. Such scandalous scenes degrade religion in the eyes of the people, and I feel it my duty again to call your most serious attention to them.... These deeply to be regretted demonstrations seem to me of such a character as to summon the clergy from the reserve which it has hitherto maintained. On this point I can do no more than to make a pressing appeal to the prudence and firmness of your grace by demanding if you do not think it proper to rebuke publicly such profanity. Receive, etc.,
The Minister of Public Instruction and Worship,
"Rouland."