"Take courage in your misfortune. Have faith!" said his friend.
Finally, he opened the letter. The first words which met his eyes were:
"Deo gratias! Alleluia!
"Rejoice, my dear friend. Your mother is cured—completely cured. The Blessed Virgin has restored her miraculously to health." The Abbé Dupont then went on to relate the divine manner in which Madame Rizan had found at the end of her agony life instead of death.
We may easily fancy the joy of the son and of his friend. The latter was employed in a printing-house at Bordeaux, where was published the Messager Catholique. "Give me that letter," said he to Romain. "The works of God ought to be made known, and Our Lady of Lourdes glorified."
Partly by force, and partly by entreaty, he obtained the letter. It was published a few days afterward in the Messager Catholique.
The happy son hastened to Nay at the earliest moment. As he arrived in the diligence, a woman was waiting to greet him. She ran swiftly to meet him, and, when he descended from the coach, threw herself into his arms, weeping with tenderness and joy. It was his mother.
A few years afterward, the author, while searching out the details of his history, went in person to verify the report of the episcopal commission. He visited Madame Rizan, whose perfect health and green old age excited his admiration. Although in her seventy-first year, she has none of the infirmities which that age usually brings. Of her illness and terrible sufferings there remains not a trace; and all who had formerly known her, and whose testimony we gathered, were yet stupefied at her extraordinary cure.[155] We wished to see Doctor Subervielle. He had been dead some years.
"But," we asked a clergyman of Nay, who acted as our guide, "the invalid was attended by another physician, Doctor Talamon, was she not?"
"He is a very distinguished man," replied our companion. "He was in the habit of visiting Madame Rizan, not professionally, but as a friend and neighbor. But after her miraculous cure he ceased his visits, and did not make his appearance for eight or ten months."