BOOK EIGHTH.
I.
The appointment by the Bishop of a commission of examination, and the analysis of M. Filhol, deprived Baron Massy, M. Rouland, and M. Jacomet of all pretext for continuing violent measures, or for maintaining about the grotto strict prohibitions, barriers, and guards.
In justification of the restrictions previously made, it had been said: "Considering that it is very desirable, in the interest of religion, to put an end to the deplorable scenes now presented at the grotto of Massabielle." Now the Bishop, by declaring the matter to be of sufficient importance for his intervention, and by taking in hand the examination of those things which affected the interests of religion, had deprived the civil power of this motive which it had made so prominent.
In justification of the prohibition to go and drink at the spring which had gushed out under the hand of Bernadette, it had been urged "that the care of the local public health devolves upon the mayor," and that this water "is suspected on good grounds to contain mineral ingredients, making it prudent, before permitting its use, to wait for a scientific analysis to determine the applications which may be made of it in medicine." Now, M. Filhol, by his decision that the water had no mineral properties, and that it could be drunk without inconvenience, had annihilated in the name of science and of medicine this plea of "the public health."
If, then, these considerations had been real reasons for the civil power, and not merely specious pretexts; if it had really been acting in the "interests of religion and the public health," instead of being under the sway of evil passions and intolerance; or if, in a word, it had been sincere instead of being hypocritical, it would now have had nothing to do but to remove its prohibitions and barriers; it would have only had to leave the people perfectly free to drink of this fountain, the perfect harmlessness of which had been attested by science, and to recognize their right to kneel at the foot of these mysterious rocks, where for the future the church was to be on the watch.
II.
But this was not the case. There was a great obstacle to this course, so clearly indicated by logic and conscience; namely, pride. Pride was the ruling spirit from one end of the scale to the other, from Jacomet up to Rouland, including Baron Massy and the philosophical coterie. It seemed hard to them to retreat and lay down their arms. Pride never surrenders. It prefers rather to take an illogical position than to bow to the authority of reason. Furious, beside itself, and absurd, it revolts against evidence. Like Satan, it says, "Non serviam." It resists, it refuses to bend, it stiffens its neck, till suddenly it is broken by some contemptuous and superior power.
III.
There remained for the official and officious foes of superstition one last weapon to use, one final struggle to make. Though the battle seemed to be certainly lost in the Pyrenees, perhaps the lost position might be regained in Paris, and the favor of public opinion secured throughout France and Europe, before the cosmopolitan assemblage of tourists and bathers, returning home, should pass their severe judgments on the other side. This was tried. A formidable attack was made by the irreligious press of Paris, the provinces, and other countries, upon the events at Lourdes and the Bishop's ordinance.
While the generals of the infidel army engaged in a decisive combat upon this vast scale, the duty of the Prefect of Hautes-Pyrenees, like that of Kellerman at Valmy, was to hold at all costs his line of operation, not to recede a single foot from it, and not to capitulate on any terms. The intrepidity of Baron Massy was well known, and it was understood that neither arguments nor the most surprising miracles would prevail over his invincible firmness. He would stand by his sinking ship to the last. The absurd had in him an excellent champion.