A certain party, desirous of bringing pilgrimages into disrepute, and inclined to seek some human cause for everything supernatural, attributes a political object to this great crusade of prayer which the impious instinctively tremble before, and not without reason. M. Lasserre thus closes an address to the visitor to Notre Dame de Lourdes:
“Pilgrims of France! Your politics at the grotto of Lourdes is to pray, to begin a new life, to sanctify yourselves, and to become in this corrupt age the chosen righteous who are to save the wicked cities of the land. It is thus you will labor efficaciously for the prosperity of your country and bring back its past splendor and glory. A nation desirous of salvation in heaven, is a nation saved on earth.”
We close by echoing one of the acclamations sung alternately by clergy and people at the solemn celebration in this place of benediction:
V. Omnibus nobis peregrinantibus, et universo Christiano populo, Fidei, Spei, et Charitatis augmentum et gaudium æternum.
R. Amen. Amen. Salvos fac servos tuos, Domine, et benedic hæreditati tuæ, et rege eos, et extolle illos usque in æternum.
Fiat. Fiat. Amen.
THE HOUSE OF JOAN OF ARC.
I am writing these lines in a small inn of Domrémy, on the evening of my pilgrimage to the lowly dwelling of Jeanne d’Arc. My table is an old coffer, shakily placed on the rugged and disjointed paving stones which form the floor, and my only companion a kitten gambolling in the red rays of the setting sun. I thus begin my account of that house which has been well called the santa casa of France.
Arriving at Domrémy while yet its green valleys were enveloped in the white vapors rising from the Meuse, my first sight of the place was through the mist of early morning.