The Journal des Débats, Siècle, Presse, Indépendance Belge, and various foreign journals, also came manfully to the rescue. The smallest newspapers of the smallest countries considered it an honor to serve in this campaign against the supernatural. We find, in fact, among the combatants, a microscopic sheet called the Courant, published at Amsterdam.
Some, like the Presse, by the pen of M. Guéroult, or the Siècle, by those of MM. Bénard and Jourdan, attacked the very idea of miracles, declaring that they had had their day, that the discussion of them was no longer admissible, and to examine into a question which had already been decided by the light of philosophy was beneath the dignity of free examen. "Miracles," said M. Guéroult, "belong to a state of civilization which is almost gone by. Though God does not change, the conception which men form of him changes from age to age, according to the prevailing standard of morality and intelligence. Ignorant nations who do not understand the harmony of the laws by which the universe is governed imagine that they see continual exceptions to these laws. They think that God appears and speaks to them, or sends them a message by his angels, almost daily. But as society becomes more intelligent and better informed, and as the sciences based on observation come in to counteract the vagaries of the imagination, all this mythology disappears. Man does not on that account become less religious, but more so, though in a different manner. He does not any longer see gods and goddesses, angels and demons, face to face; but he seeks to discover the divine will as manifested in the laws of the world. Miracles, which at certain periods have been necessary to faith and served to convey the most important truths, have become in our day the bugbear of all serious conviction." M. Guéroult declared that, if he should be told that the most remarkable miracle was occurring close by his house on the Place de la Concorde, he would not take a step out of his way to see it. "If such occurrences," added he, "can occupy a place for a time among the superstitious trumpery of the ignorant masses, they only excite a smile of contempt among enlightened men, among those whose opinion is sure to be ultimately adopted by all the world."[131]
Other papers valiantly set to work to distort the facts. Though also attacking miracles in principle, the Siècle, in spite of the enormous yield of twenty thousand and odd litres a day, still remained, in its capacity of an enlightened and advanced journal, at the old thesis of hallucination and infiltration. "It seems difficult to us," said M. Bénard, very gravely, "to see a miracle in the hallucination of a little girl of fourteen, or in the oozing out of some water in a cave."
As for the miraculous cures, they were easily disposed of as follows: "Hydropathic physicians also claim to effect the most extraordinary cures by means of pure water, but they have not as yet proclaimed upon the house-tops that these cures are miracles."[132]
But the most curious example of the good faith of the free-thinkers, or of their sagacity in examining this matter, is to be found in the Dutch newspaper which we have mentioned above, and whose weighty narrative was reproduced by the French journals. Let us see how this friend of enlightenment enlightened the world by his account of the matter:
"A new manifestation, designed to excite and promote the fervor of the faithful in the worship of the Blessed Virgin, was imminent. The deliberations of the bishops on this point had resulted in the preparation of the famous miracle of Lourdes. It is well known that the Bishop of Tarbes appointed a commission of inquiry. The so-called conclusions of the report of the commission, which is composed of ecclesiastics and persons in the pay of the clergy, were prepared long before their first session. The pretended shepherdess Bernadette is not an innocent peasant, but a highly cultivated city girl of a very wily character, who has passed several months in a convent, where she was taught the part she was to play. There, before a small audience, rehearsals were made long before the public performance. As will be observed, nothing was wanting for the completeness of this comedy, not even the usual rehearsals. If at any time there is a scarcity of actors at Paris, the places can be admirably filled from the ranks of the superior clergy. However, the liberal press has made the matter thoroughly ridiculous, and it is not improbable that the clergy, in their own interest, will see the necessity of being prudent."[133] The information of the journals seems hardly to have been so accurate as that which secured the simple faith of His Excellency M. Rouland. The public, it is evident, were treated with no more respect than the minister. This is too often the way in which the opinion of those whom M. Guéroult called in his article "enlightened men," alluding, no doubt, to the torrent of light thrown upon them by the press, is formed.
Another point of attack besides the actual events and the possibility of miracles was the ordinance of the Bishop of Tarbes. Philosophy, in virtue of the infallibility of its dogmas, protested against examination, scientific study, and experiment. "When some crazy person sends a paper on perpetual motion or the squaring of the circle to the Academy of Science, the Academy passes to the order of the day without wasting time in criticising such lucubrations. And there is no more need of examination in the case of a supposed miracle. Philosophy, in the name of reason, passes to the order of the day. To examine the claims of the supernatural facts would be to admit their possibility and to deny its own principles. In such matters, proofs and testimony count for nothing. We do not discuss the impossible, but dismiss it with a shrug." Such was the central idea of the thousand varied forms assumed by the fiery and excited polemics of the irreligious press. Vainly did it persist in denial and perversion; it was afraid to examine. False theories prefer to remain in the fluctuation and fog of pure speculation. By some natural instinct of self-preservation, they fear broad daylight, and do not dare to descend with a steady foot upon the firm ground of the experimental method. They perceive that only defeat awaits them there.
In this desperate struggle against the evidence of facts and the rights of reason, the liberal mask of the Journal des Débats unfortunately fell off, and showed the depth of furious intolerance concealed under its philosophical exterior. The Journal des Débats, by the pen of M. Prévost-Paradol, was terrified in advance at the great weight which the report of the commission and the decision of the Bishop were sure to have, and accordingly appealed to the secular arm, beseeching Cæsar to put a stop to the whole thing. "It is evident," said he, "that a striking manifestation of divine power in favor of a religion makes strongly for its individual truth, for its superiority over others, and its incontestable right to govern souls. It is then an event of a nature to produce numerous conversions, both of dissenters and of infidels; in other words, it is an instrument of proselytism." He showed also the political importance of the result of the examination. "If this decision is favorable to the miracle, it will have a tendency to dissolve in that part of France the equilibrium now existing between the religious and civil powers. The ministers of a religion in favor of which such prodigies are authentically asserted are quite different sort of people from those which the Concordat provides for. They have a very different sort of authority over the people, and in case of any collision they exert a very different kind of influence from that of the council of state and the prefect."
"We have sufficiently shown," said the writer in the Débats, "the importance which the decision of the episcopal commission at Tarbes must have in various points of view. Now, there is a truth here which should be remembered, and of which M. de Morny has just very properly reminded the council-general at Puy-de-Dôme; that is, that nothing of importance can legally be done in France without previous authority from the administration. If, as M. de Morny very justly remarks, one cannot move a rock or dig a well without the consent of the administration, still less can one without its consent authorize a miracle or establish a pilgrimage. Any one who is concerned with religious matters, and especially with the opening of churches or schools of dissenting bodies, knows that the administration has not merely one enactment, but twenty or thirty, which makes it all-powerful in such cases. The meeting of the commission of the diocese of Tarbes can be prevented or its session can be dissolved in a hundred different ways by the Concordat, by the penal code, by the law of 1824, by the decree of February, 1852, by the central authority, by the municipal authority, by all conceivable authorities. The decision of this commission can also be annulled by the legal opposition of the administrative authority to the erection of a chapel or to the distribution of the miraculous water. The same authority can prohibit and break up all meetings of the people, and prosecute the originators of such meetings, etc." Having arrived at this point, having notified Cæsar and cried "caveant consules," the able writer resumed, for form's sake, his garb of liberalism. "What is our object," said he hypocritically, "in establishing this preventive right of the administration? Is it to urge them to use it? God forbid." And thus he crept, by a sort of secret passage, into the ranks of the friends of liberty.
The provincial journals echoed the sentiments of those of Paris. The battle became universal. The sergeants, corporals, and privates of the literary army pressed forward on the steps of the marshals of free thought. The Ere Impériale of Tarbes charged its blunderbuss with arguments from Paris, and fired them off at the supernatural every other day. The little Lavedan, also, had picked up a few grains of powder, rather dampened, it must be owned, by the water of the grotto, and did its best, aided, according to report, by Jacomet, to make its weekly penny-pistol effective.