"Ah! doctor, you sin against the faith," cried the abbé who had accompanied me.
"And I, doctor, do not accuse you of sinning against faith, but I accuse you of sinning against the very principles of the science which you profess."
"How, pray, and in what?"
"Medicine is not a speculative, but an empirical science. Experience is its law. The observation of facts is its first and fundamental principle. If you had been told that Madame Rizan had cured herself by washing with a decoction from some plant recently discovered on yonder mountain, you would not have failed to ascertain the cure and to examine the plant, and put the discovery on record. It might have been as important as that of quinine in the last century. You would have done the same if the cure had been produced by some new sulphurous or alkaline substance. But, now, everybody is talking about a fountain of miraculous water, and you have never yet been to see it. Forgetting that you are a physician, that is to say, a humble observer of facts, you have refused to notice this, as did the scientific academies which rejected steam and proscribed quinine on some quack principles of their own. In medicine, when fact contradicts a principle, it means that the principle is wrong. Experience is the supreme judge. And here, doctor, allow me to say that, if you had not had some vague consciousness that what I am telling you is true, you would have rushed to find out the truth, and would have given yourself the pleasure of showing up the imposture of a miracle which was setting the whole neighborhood wild with excitement. But this would have exposed you to the danger of being forced to surrender; and you have acted like those party-slaves who will not listen to the arguments of their opponents. You have listened to your philosophical prejudices, and you have been false to the first law of medicine, which is to face the study of facts—no matter of what nature—in order to derive instruction from them. I speak freely, doctor, because I am aware of your great merits, and that your keen intellect is capable of hearing the truth. Many physicians have refused to certify to facts of this nature, for fear of having to brave the resentment of the faculty and the raillery of friends of their profession. With regard to yourself, doctor, although your philosophy may have deceived you, human respect has had nothing at all to do with your keeping aloof."
"Certainly not," he replied, "but, perhaps, if I had placed myself at the point of view which you have indicated, I might have done better by examining the matter."
V.
Long before the occurrences at Lourdes, at an epoch when Bernadette was not yet in the world, in 1843, during the month of April, an honorable family of Tartas in the Landes was in a state of great anxiety. The year before, Mlle. Adèle de Chariton had been married to M. Moreau de Sazenay, and now approached the term of her pregnancy. The crisis of a first maternity is always alarming. The medical men, summoned in haste on the preliminary symptoms, declared that the birth would be very difficult, and did not conceal their fear of some danger. No one is ignorant of the cruel anxiety of such a juncture. The most poignant anguish is not for the poor wife who is prostrated upon her bed of pain, and entirely absorbed in her physical sufferings. It is the husband whose heart is now the prey of indescribable tortures. They are of the age of vivid impressions; they have entered upon a new life, and begun to taste the joys of a union which God seems to have blessed; they have passed a few months full of anticipations of the future. The young couple have set them down, so to speak, side by side in a fairy pleasure-boat. The river of life has carried them softly on amid banks of flowers. Suddenly, without warning, the shadow of death rises before them. The heart of the husband, expanded with hope for the child so soon to be born, is crushed by terror for his wife, who may be about to perish. He hears her accents of pain. How will the crisis end? Is it to be in joy or bereavement? What is about to issue from that chamber? Will it be life or death? What must we send for—a cradle or a coffin? Or—horrible contrast—will both be necessary? Or, worse still, shall two coffins be necessary? Human science is silent, and hesitates to pronounce.
This anguish is frightful, but especially for those who do not seek from God their strength and consolation. But M. Moreau was a Christian. He knew that the thread of our existence is in the hands of a supreme Master, to whom we can always appeal from the doctors of science. When man has passed sentence, the King of heaven, as well as other sovereigns, holds the right of pardon.
"The Blessed Virgin will, perhaps, vouchsafe to hear me," thought the afflicted husband. He addressed himself with confidence to the Mother of Christ.